Animal Care Technician

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.

Non-exempt

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

• One-year animal handling and husbandry technician experience

• Demonstrates the skills and competencies necessary to safely perform the assigned job, determined through on-going skills, competency assessments, and performance evaluations

• Sufficient proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing the English language necessary to perform the essential functions of this job, especially with regard to activities impacting patient or employee safety or security

• Ability to effectively communicate with patients, physicians, family members and co-workers in a manner consistent with a customer service focus and application of positive language principles

• Ability to operate various cage wash and laboratory equipment include rack and tunnel washers, autoclaves and pressure washing systems

• Ability to perform animal husbandry duties using specialized IVC equipment and species-specific caging

• General animal handling skills involved with cage cleaning and animal transporting

• Ability to recognize animal health concerns

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

• 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…