Now that you are a professional perfusionist, is it all you imagined? What are some amazing parts of this job?
I’m reminded every day why I love this field so much! We see extremely sick patients come in for surgery, place them on the heart-lung machine and act as their life support for a couple of hours and watch as they come back with a new chance at life after the surgeons repair their hearts. We help with everything cardiac: from implanting VADs or ECMO in patients who need long-term life-support, or minimally invasive TAVR patients who can leave the same day as receiving a new valve, or emergencies at all hours of the day. Perfusionists at other centers also support patients receiving heart or lung transplants, or children born with congenital malformations.
Some days are late, long and difficult for sure, but it’s all worth it to see those memorable success-story patients go home when the odds were stacked against them.
