A cardiovascular technician assists heart surgeons and nurses in many ways to ensure the work they perform goes smoothly. Duties range from scheduling, handling patient files, and caring for patients and equipment, and many other responsibilities. Cardiovascular technician jobs and the duties they perform differ depending on the specialty, which can include support, quality assurance, and invasive and non-invasive care. Each of these different cardiovascular technician jobs have the same basic goals of ensuring that a patient's heart is strong and healthy and that the patient receives the appropriate level of heart care.
General cardiovascular technician jobs function as support staff for a cardiovascular medical team. One of the biggest jobs is scheduling appointments and notifying the appropriate hospital staff that must be present; for this reason, an excellent attention to detail is necessary. Other basic functions of the cardiovascular technician career include handling patient files and monitoring the patient's heart rate prior to an examination. In most cases, a technician must complete a two or four-year college course of study in order to be certified for this line of work.
Cardiovascular support is one of the important cardiovascular technician jobs. This is an important role because it ensures that all supplies are readily available for the medical staff during examinations and surgery. A support technician must keep adequate records of supplies and restock medicine, tools, and other necessities dealing with heart health and treatment.
A multitude of equipment is necessary to successfully monitor and repair a heart. Quality assurance cardiovascular technicians ensure all of this equipment is up to code and working properly. This includes inspecting equipment and having it repaired as well as keeping a repair log. Inspecting pre- and post-sterilization of instruments is another crucial step. In many cases, the quality assurance technician is the expert on a particular device and will train doctors and nurses on its operation.
Invasive cardiovascular technician jobs deal specifically with internal heart work. This type of technician will prep a patient to receive a catheter, which will be inserted into the body to perform a variety of heart-related tasks. A non-invasive technician works solely with exterior monitoring equipment such as ultrasound. In this role, the technician operates certain equipment to get a better look at the heart and often uses the equipment to take a picture for a doctor to review. Whether the work is invasive or non-invasive, this type of cardiovascular technician job offers the most contact with patients.
