#ecmo

Not everyone wants MBBS, but many students still want a meaningful healthcare career. That’s why the BSc Perfusion Technology course is becoming one of the fastest-growing medical options in India.

Perfusionists operate heart–lung machines during cardiac surgeries, assist transplant teams, and manage ECMO support in ICUs. Their work directly affects patient survival during complex procedures.

Why Students Choose This Course in 2025

With rising cardiac cases and upgraded ICUs, the demand for perfusionists has increased rapidly. Students prefer this field because it offers:

• Strong job stability • Hands-on work with life-support equipment • Opportunities in cardiac surgery & critical care • Growth paths in ECMO and transplant units • High demand in India and overseas

What You Learn in the Program

The course covers both medical sciences and technical training, including:

• Anatomy & Physiology • Perfusion Equipment • Cardiac Perfusion • Pharmacology • Critical Care Technology • Clinical OT training

The internship year gives students real exposure inside cardiac operating theatres and ICUs.

Career Opportunities

Graduates can work in:

✔ Cardiac Surgery OT ✔ ECMO Units ✔ Critical Care ICUs ✔ Transplant Teams ✔ Pediatric Cardiac Centers ✔ Medical Device Companies ✔ Academic Roles

Professionals with ECMO experience are especially in demand.

Salary & Growth

Freshers typically start at ₹28,000–₹45,000 per month. With experience in ECMO or transplant support, salaries can reach ₹1.2–2 lakh per month in major hospitals. International opportunities offer even higher packages.

Is This the Right Course for You?

Choose this path if you:

• Enjoy biology & medical technology • Want a hospital-based role • Prefer critical care environments • Look for a stable, impactful healthcare career

You remember that whole Umbara Arc, when Kix lost his cool and so desperately tried to pull his brothers to safety and render aid, even though it was hopeless and at risk of his own life? Everybody was present with him that day, given a little insight into his perspective. Or, who remembers the medic from Saving Private Ryan, who did the same in more graphic fashion, risking his life and losing it because it was better than watching others suffer?

I know how they felt. Not in the sense of my brothers and sisters are dying in a war, though we fight a different type or war. But in the perspective of watching the inevitable clutches of death take your patient, no matter how you fight, no matter the highly trained skills, no matter the expensive equipment and priceless experience brought to bear. Or when you realize that perhaps you’ve gone past the point of humane, trapping a soul in a broken body that can no longer support them. When no one listens to you, when you want to help but have your hands tied. When that ONE THING eludes you that could have helped. When you’ve moved so past the point of desperate that your team’s humor takes on a dark shape and you can only laugh to stave off the feelings of insanity at what you’re doing, how hopeless you feel, how much you’d like to leave and scream in a quiet place. When you feel invisible because everyone else has such tunnel vision they can no longer hear a voice of concern or reason.

It’s not because people don’t care. Rather, everyone cares so much that they really no longer know what to do. And so every team member walks away wondering if they did enough. Did they fail the patient? Did they miss the piece that could have fixed it all? Were they too afraid to speak up when that would have helped? Could they have saved that patient if only they’d done a little more, had some other idea, pushed that blood faster… anything. At the end of it all you’re left in silence, trying to recover and make sense of the storm. You’re left with ghosts, which will never leave you. Haunted by those you couldn’t save, who whisper to you in the quiet.

It’s not really even their voices you hear - it’s your self condemnation for not beating Death, for not being enough. Or at least, that’s what a good medic hears. The ones who care enough to let it drive you to save the next one. The ones who fight on in your memory, learn from the mistakes and the pain and the loss, who willingly carry your ghost with them for the rest of their lives and to the end of their usefulness.

I once had an experienced coworker from another specialty tell me, “You’re not normal. This unit is not normal. You should not walk among the dead like you’re in a war zone, and just go on to the next patient. How do you do this job?”

Because there’s always the next person you COULD save. Because life is worth fighting for. Because even after all the grief and failure and loss and heartbreak, somehow we stand up to try again. Because we have hope. Or at least, that’s what we tell ourselves when the call comes out for the next run. When we pull ourselves back together, shut our eyes to the devastation, and try again. This time we will win.

In the silence, I know what Kix felt, when Rex wrenched him from the line of fire. We can’t save them all, but by god will we try.

Why are gun rights protected more than abortion rights in the US? The process to get a gun should be HARDER than the process it takes for an abortion.

Americans are so blind to protecting gun rights over the right to an abortion. This makes me sick to my stomach. Gun rights get more protections than abortion does. And guns take away a human life. Abortion doesn’t.

About abortion rights: if you think about it, a fetus in a mother’s womb isn’t viable until 23 weeks gestation. The fetus isn’t even considered a baby, it’s more like a parasite… that parasite feeds off the host (the mom carrying it) for 23 weeks until they start being strong enough to not need that host. Hell, you could deliver that child at 23 weeks but they’ll still need neonatal intensive care up until they reach a certain goal weight before going home. (That goal weight usually is over 5lbs or sometimes even 6lbs)... they’d need what is known as ECMO which is Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, which delivers respiratory and cardiovascular support until the baby is strong enough that they don’t need it anymore and can be taken off it. Sure you can come at me all you want over “abortion is murder” but then you don’t realize that guns murder people every single day. Abortion is NOT murder. It’s a medical procedure that shouldn’t even be debated by the US Supreme Court. It should never be debated as women should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies without being penalized by a court that has mainly men on it.

Guns: The process to get a gun should be even harder than it is for a woman to seek an abortion. Why? Because they should have to pass a psychological, financial and emotional assessment before getting their hands on one, they should have to wait weeks in a queue before they’re accepted. Think of it is like a 17-year-old who wants to apply for a super-elite college like Harvard or New York University, they have to submit their high school transcript, along with their financial statements to afford it and a thesis to why they should get into that college they want to be taking their dream course at. That should be the same process for gun ownership, as a college enrollment form. People wanting guns should have to sit through a mental health assessment to prove they're capable of owning them. If that person is accepted, they should also be given the proper mechanism to keep the gun from being in the wrong hands. As you know, a gun safe with a key or a passcode on the door keeps it from being used when it shouldn't.

Very interesting question. It depends on what life support measures are being implemented, and how dependent on them the person is.

Life support is a range of different machines and therapies designed to keep a person alive. This ranges from something called ECMO, which effectively takes over for the heart and lungs for temporary periods, to simply a tube that goes from the nose to the stomach to deliver food and water to a person who cannot eat or drink.

As stated above, the most intensive life support is ECMO, which is essentially a machine that takes over the functions of the heart and lungs temporarily- oxygenating blood outside the body and circulating it. This is usually used in open heart surgery, though it can be used in some ICUs for longer periods of time. Assuming the person is entirely dependent on ECMO (as in, they do not have heart or lung function on their own), they would begin to die within minutes of ECMO being withdrawn.

Next down might be something like a ventilator. Ventilators have different modes that allow a person who has some respiratory function on their own to continue exercising it while being supported mechanically.

For example, someone may be on a ventilator only to provide extra pressure to overcome the resistance from a tube that goes from their mouth to their lungs to hold open their airway, and sometimes it adds pressure to make it easier for the person to pull in breaths. This person can probably breathe on their own for an indeterminate amount of time and would not necessarily die if the ventilator was withdrawn, though they may have trouble keeping their airway open or they may tire out easily trying to breathe.

Another vent setting involves the patient breathing as much as they can, and the ventilator serving as a backup. If the person doesn't take a breath in a set number of seconds, the ventilator gives them one. This person may survive for a while afterwards, but would likely eventually die due to high levels of carbon dioxide in their blood. It might be any time between an hour or less to several days before the person's death.

The highest setting on most vents still allows the patient to initiate breaths, but every breath they take is assisted to ensure it is a complete breath, and the machine also delivers a set number of breaths every minute. Someone who is dependent on this mode may pass within minutes of being taken off the vent and likely wouldn't live more than an hour or so, dying from lack of oxygen or buildup of carbon dioxide.

Another life support device is a cooling blanket. When certain parts of the brain are damaged (such as the parts that are damaged after a long period without oxygen), the person cannot control their own temperature, and they tend to get extremely overheated by their own metabolism. Temps can get into the 110's *F, which kills pretty quickly. Fever-reducing drugs are not effective. This would also be someone who could last anywhere from an hour or so to a couple of days, though their brain would quickly become more and more damaged during this time.

The least intensive form of life support would be the provision of food or water through an NG tube- a tube that goes from the nose to the stomach and allows medications and tube feed (water and basic nutrition) to be delivered to the stomach. If this is withdrawn and IV fluids are not provided, the person may live a week or more before dying of dehydration. If they are, for some reason, given IV fluids, they may live months.

Note that a person may be on a combination of modalities (like it would be weird for someone to be on a ventilator without an NG tube).