Associate Animal Care Tech

Vanderbilt University Medical Center•Nashville, TN

About The Position

Learns and applies technical animal husbandry skills for the care of multiple animal colonies, with regular guidance. Operates within existing regulations. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is located in Nashville, Tennessee, and operates at a global crossroads of teaching, discovery, and patient care. VUMC is a community of individuals who come to work each day with the simple aim of changing the world. It is a place where your expertise will be valued, your knowledge expanded, and your abilities challenged. Vanderbilt Health is committed to an environment where everyone has the chance to thrive and where your uniqueness is sought and celebrated. It is a place where employees know they are part of something that is bigger than themselves, take exceptional pride in their work and never settle for what was good enough yesterday. Vanderbilt’s mission is to advance health and wellness through preeminent programs in patient care, education, and research. Our Academic Enterprise is one of the nation’s longest serving and most prestigious academic medical centers. Through its historic bond with Vanderbilt University and integral role in the School of Medicine, Vanderbilt Health cultivates distinguished research and educational programs to advance a clinical enterprise that provides compassionate and personalized care and support for millions of patients and family members each year. World-leading academic departments and comprehensive centers of excellence pursue scientific discoveries and transformational educational and clinical advances across the entire spectrum of health and disease. Aligning with Vanderbilt Health’s Strategic Directions, the Office of Research provides shared research resources, administrative expertise and professional guidance to enable the trans-disciplinary environment and highly collaborative culture that advances discovery and training for all the research faculty, trainees, students and staff.

Requirements

Communication (Novice): Clearly, effectively and respectfully communicates to employees or customers.
Customer Service (Novice): A continuing focus on the needs and requirements of customers, anticipating their needs, remaining sensitive to customers while performing services for them, responsive to customer needs.
Planning (Fundamental Awareness): Plans work to complete projects on time. Competently handles multiple assignments simultaneously. Able to be flexible to meet changing customer needs with minimal disruption and loss of productivity. Uses time efficiently.
Regulatory Compliance (Fundamental Awareness): Demonstrates knowledge of the appropriate rules and regulations and apply them in difficult, stressful and complex situations. Able to interpret and explain rules and regulations that are ambiguous or unclear. Directs others in interpreting rules and regulations on the job and trains others in them.
Judgement and Decision-Making (Fundamental Awareness): Able to make decisions effectively and accurately in an environment which may be fast-paced or changing. Considers a wide range of alternatives, including those which may fall outside of the scope of the task at hand, before making a decision.
Animal Care Knowledge (Novice): Knowledgeable on the needs, treatment, and husbandry for different animal species. Able to ensure their welfare, nutrition, and safety.
Laboratory Animal Diseases (Fundamental Awareness): Knowledge of and experience with laboratory animal diseases, outbreaks, methods of spread, and methods of limiting disease.
Organizational Impact: Performs clearly defines tasks and methods described in detail to achieve standardized solutions that impact own performance with regular guidance.
Problem Solving/ Complexity of work: Follows a well established process to solve routine problems where solutions are clearly prescribed.
Breadth of Knowledge: Has basic job knowledge of systems and procedures that are common to own job.
Delivering Excellent Services: Serves Others with Compassion: Invests time to understand the problems, needs of others and how to provide excellent service.
Solves Complex Problems: Seeks to understand issues, solves routine problems, and raises proper concerns in a timely manner.
Offers Meaningful Advice and Support: Listens carefully to understand the issues and provides accurate information and support.
Ensuring High Quality: Performs Excellent Work: Checks work quality before delivery and asks relevant questions to meet quality standards.
Ensures Continuous Improvement: Shows eagerness to learn new knowledge, technologies, tools or systems and displays willingness to go above and beyond.
Fulfills Safety and Regulatory Requirements: Demonstrates basic knowledge of conditions that affect safety and reports unsafe conditions to the appropriate person or department.
Managing Resources Effectively: Demonstrates Accountability: Takes responsibility for completing assigned activities and thinks beyond standard approaches to provide high-quality work/service.
Stewards Organizational Resources: Displays understanding of how personal actions will impact departmental resources.
Makes Data Driven Decisions: Uses accurate information and good decision making to consistently achieve results on time and without error.
Fostering Innovation: Generates New Ideas: Willingly proposes/accepts ideas or initiatives that will impact day-to-day operations by offering suggestions to enhance them.
Applies Technology: Absorbs new technology quickly; understands when to utilize the appropriate tools and procedures to ensure proper course of action.
Adapts to Change: Embraces changes by keeping an open mind to changing plans and incorporates change instructions into own area of work.

Responsibilities

Participates in the cleaning and maintenance of animal quarters.
Provides routine care of research animals.
Performs daily checks for animal health and welfare and maintains adequate supply levels in animal quarters.
Monitors and reports on environmental room and housing conditions.
Develops ability to recognize and report potential clinical abnormalities and/or irregularities in lab animals.
Euthanizes all species according to established regulations.
Maintains accurate and prompt records in accordance with outlined procedures.
Follows procedures to comply with operating and regulatory requirements related to care of laboratory animals.