On the cardiothoracic surgery service, the CV Surgery ACNP manages patients across the perioperative continuum — preoperative workup, intraoperative assistance in some programs, ICU and step-down management, and the steady follow-up that gets patients home. The role lives between bedside expertise and physician-level decision-making.
Cardiovascular Surgery Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (Cardiovascular Surgery ACNP) pay typically runs $79K–$108K at this level, and jobs in this field are projected to grow 5% through 2034. The next title up is often Senior Cardiovascular Surgery Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (Cardiovascular Surgery ACNP).
A typical day tends to involve rounding with the surgical team, daily management of post-op patients across CVICU and step-down, procedures within scope (chest tube removal, central lines, sometimes vein harvesting in some programs), family conferences, and detailed documentation. The acuity is the everyday baseline, and decisions cascade across organ systems.
Coordination spans cardiothoracic surgeons, intensivists, perfusion, RT, pharmacy, social work, and families navigating major surgery. The bedside-RN background you bring shapes how you read the data — you understand what the nurse is seeing in a way pure-physician training doesn't always replicate. Goals-of-care conversations consume real cognitive and emotional bandwidth.
NPs who tend to thrive here are clinically advanced, comfortable with high-acuity decision-making, and steady through bad outcomes that come with cardiac surgery. If you crave continuity or struggle with the moral weight of perioperative mortality, the role can wear. If you find meaning in managing complex post-op patients with real autonomy, the role can be technically and humanely deep.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Healthcare roles →On the cardiothoracic surgery service, the CV Surgery ACNP manages patients across the perioperative continuum — preoperative workup, intraoperative assistance in some programs, ICU and step-down management, and the steady follow-up that gets patients home. The role lives between bedside expertise and physician-level decision-making.
Median pay for a Cardiovascular Surgery Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (Cardiovascular Surgery ACNP) is about $94K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $66K to $135K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Service Orientation, Speaking, Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking, and Social Perceptiveness.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 4.9% through 2034, with roughly 3.3 million people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Senior Cardiovascular Surgery Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (Cardiovascular Surgery Acnp), Medical Director Acute Rehabilitation Unit Physiatrist, and MSN (Medical Surgical Nurse).
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