Animal Care Technician - Comparative Medicine

Houston Methodist; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 10,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a dedicated Animal Care Technician to join their team. This role involves providing exceptional care to research animals, ensuring compliance with federal regulations, and maintaining high standards of animal husbandry. The ideal candidate will thrive in a dynamic environment, collaborating with veterinary and research teams. With a focus on quality and safety, you will contribute to the well-being of laboratory animals while embracing opportunities for personal and professional growth. If you are passionate about animal care and looking to make a difference in research, this is the perfect opportunity for you.

Qualifications

• Requires a high school diploma or equivalent and one year of animal handling experience.
• Strong skills in animal husbandry and effective communication are essential.

Responsibilities

• Provide daily care and husbandry for laboratory animals, ensuring compliance with regulations.
• Perform sanitization of equipment and maintain accurate animal room records.

Skills

Animal Handling

Animal Husbandry

Communication Skills

Time Management

Education

High School Diploma or Equivalent

Tools

Cage Wash Equipment

Electronic Radio Frequency Identification System

Bulk Autoclaves

Job description

At Houston Methodist, the Animal Care Technician position is responsible for delivering exceptional animal care to the research animals at Houston Methodist Academic Institute (HMAI) Comparative Medicine Program (CMP) under the direction of the Comparative Medicine Animal Care Technician Supervisor. This position performs daily animal care and husbandry of laboratory animals including operating specialized cage wash equipment in a research environment, ensuring animal room records are maintained in conformance with institutional policies and federal regulations including the Animal Welfare Act, Good Laboratory Practices and the standards required for Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care accreditation.

PEOPLE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Establishes and maintains working relationships and communicates effectively with the Houston Methodist Academic Institute (HMAI) animal care, veterinary and research teams.

• Practices Houston Methodist ICARE values in a dynamic, multi-cultural and international work environment. Contributes towards improvement of department scores for employee engagement, i.e., peer-to-peer accountability.

SERVICE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Provides daily animal husbandry and care for a variety of laboratory animal species including routine cage change out, daily health checks and feed/water maintenance.

• Performs animal handling for a variety of laboratory animal species and effectively communicates related issues to the CMP Animal Care Supervisor.

• Performs sanitization of caging and equipment using tunnel and rack washers, bulk autoclaves and other specialized laboratory equipment.

• Performs daily animal census using an electronic Radio Frequency Identification scanning system.

QUALITY/SAFETY ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Ensures that animal room records are maintained in conformance with institutional policies and federal regulations.

• Ensures the CMP facility remains prepared for routine Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspections and meets occupational health and safety standards.

• Performs scheduled room and equipment sanitation to meet established CMP quality control standards in animal housing areas.

FINANCE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Identifies and communicates cost saving initiatives within the department. Self-motivated to independently manage time effectively and prioritize daily tasks, assisting coworkers as needed.

GROWTH/INNOVATION ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Generates and communicates new ideas and suggestions that improve quality and service for a variety of husbandry animal care procedures and facility support practices.

• Embraces opportunities to acquire additional knowledge regarding guidelines and regulations that affect CMP's animal research facility.

• Seeks opportunities to identify self-development needs and expands learning beyond baseline competencies with a focus on continual development as a technician and takes appropriate action. Ensures own career discussions occur with appropriate management. Completes and updates the My Development Plan on an on-going basis.

This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive; the employee will also perform other reasonably related business/job duties as assigned. Houston Methodist reserves the right to revise job duties and responsibilities as the need arises.

EDUCATION

• High School diploma or equivalent education (examples include: GED, verification of homeschool equivalency, partial or full completion of post-secondary education, etc.)

WORK EXPERIENCE

• One-year animal handling and husbandry technician experience