I was a 20 year old out-of-work iron worker when my Grandmother, a traveling open heart surgical tech of 35 years took a break from her contracts to visit the state I was living in. She had a huge 40ft Bounder RV that she towed her car behind from job to job. She mentioned that she could really use my help setting the thing up and taking it down, not to mention driving the long distances between jobs and I jumped at the chance to go.

The first stop I got a job in the same OR as an orderly for 6 months, then again at another for 3 months. Then became an anesthesia tech at another hospital and eventually a surgical tech. We traveled together for 5 years before I returned to the state I left from.

When I got back I made up my resume and marched straight into the biggest hospital in that state's capital city and handed it directly to the director of surgery. He ended up interviewing me on the spot and I worked there for five years.

My Grandfather got sick and I returned to a small county in Florida to take care of him. When he passed there were only two small hospitals here and the economy was terrible. Nobody was hiring for anything, much less surgery. I realized I was in a niche profession and needed more options so I became a nurse.

I'm a million miles away from the ups and downs of routine/trauma life in the OR. I'm humping a management job at a SNF and while it's nice that my company and my coworkers make me feel very valuable given my past experience I do miss surgery every day.

For you my humble opinion is that since you're a cardiac nurse already, getting your CNOR and getting in at any hospital that'll have you on any surgery team you can and then leveraging your way on to the open heart team once you have your chops would make you a damn solid candidate. Working on your BSN at some point during that time would help you land a spot at a magnet status hospital as well.

That's just my thoughts on it. Others may have a better route as mine was unconventional.