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Kraena Pre-Health
Career Library

Technical & Diagnostic

Perfusionist (CCP)

Runs the heart-lung machine — for a few hours, you are the patient's circulation.

Years after high school

6-7

Degree

Master's degree at most current programs

Entrance exam

Program-specific; GRE at some

Median pay

BLS does not publish a standalone national wage series for clinical perfusionists. Compensation should be verified using current employer or professional-society data rather than assigning a proxy occupation median.

What the job is actually like

Cardiac surgery: you take over the patient's heart and lungs, managing flow, oxygenation, temperature, and anticoagulation while the surgeon works on a stopped heart. Some programs also run ECMO for critically ill patients.

The path

  1. 014 year bachelor's degree with strong science coursework
  2. 02Accredited perfusion program, now typically a 2 year master's
  3. 03Required number of clinical cases during training
  4. 04ABCP examinations for CCP certification

Good fit if

  • You want extreme responsibility and are steady under it
  • You like physiology and machinery in equal measure
  • You want high pay without medical school

Think twice if

  • You could not carry knowing an error is likely unrecoverable
  • You cannot relocate — very few programs exist nationally
  • Heavy call would not fit your life

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All salary figures here are median annual wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 — the most recent full national dataset. 'Median' means half of workers earn more and half earn less. Three things to keep in mind: (1) pay varies enormously by state, city, setting, and experience — a nurse in California and a nurse in rural Alabama earn very different salaries; (2) training lengths are typical, not guaranteed, and programs differ; (3) these numbers change every year. Always verify current figures at bls.gov/ooh before making a decision. For context, the BLS median wage for all U.S. occupations was $50,980, while healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a median of $86,530 — one of the reasons health care is such a stable field.