Donor Specialist (San Antonio, TX)

KBR, Inc.•San Antonio, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

KBR is seeking a Donor Specialist to support our SPARC Program for KBR’s Science and Space division. The SPARC program (Service Personnel Advancing Research on CTE) seeks to provide education to service members, veterans, and their families on brain donation, and to recover whole specimens, process, and prepare them for shipping using appropriate methods. This is an onsite position, rotating between various partner locations each day. The Donor Specialist will be on-call on a rotating and regular basis and must be available to work nights, weekends, and holidays with previously scheduled on-call shifts. The preponderance of duties and work time of the Donor Specialist will be focused on approaching and educating medically competent military members and veterans about the potential to become a brain donor at the time of their death as part of broader outreach and awareness efforts. This role will lead and implement all aspects of community partner engagement, stakeholder coordination, and direct interactions with service members, veterans, and family members. Performing facility and community stakeholder engagement through ongoing, primarily face-to-face relationship-building interactions with healthcare facilities, medical examiner offices, funeral homes, and other regional partners. Establish and support regional community partnership and outreach event initiatives to strengthen engagement efforts. Approaching and educating families of potential donors about brain donation at the time of death of their military or veteran family member, including facilitating the informed consent process with next of kin as appropriate. Serving as the primary point of contact to be notified about potential donors and answering questions from families, healthcare workers, funeral home workers, or individuals who would like to know more about the donation program. Screening donors and coordinating with local coroners, medical examiners, and tissue transport providers to facilitate brain donation for research. Collaborating with Peer/Family Educators on recruitment activities. Performing this work under general supervision where discretion is required, such as in the homes of military members, veterans, and their family members; in the rooms of patients in healthcare facilities; and in funeral homes. On an as needed basis, ancillary duties in tissue recovery will also be performed. Such tissue recovery duties will generally be performed in mortuaries, funeral homes, medical examiner’s facilities, and healthcare facilities. The Donor Specialist may perform such duties in a solo role with no direct onsite supervision. Duties include verifying donor identity, reviewing next of kin consent and chain of custody documentation, assisting local dieners, coroners, and pathologists with donated specimens, completion of documents and records for each donation, sectioning and processing the tissue according to the protocols of the project, preparing the specimens for shipping, and coordinating the transport of the body following tissue recovery.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree plus at least 2 years of experience in human subject research, tissue donation, professional clinical laboratory work, nursing, paramedic/military medic, or related similar experience, OR An associate’s degree in a related field plus at least four years of job-related substantive experience in human subject research, tissue donation, professional clinical laboratory work, nursing, paramedic/military medic, or similar related experience.
In lieu of a degree, 10 years of related experience may be considered.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience working in military environments and interacting with service member personnel and their families.
Ability to speak, read, and write in Spanish.
Experience in the field of tissue or organ donation.

Responsibilities

Protecting the rights and welfare of all human research participants involved in research in accordance with federal regulations and sponsoring agency policies and procedures
Adhering to and supporting all Federal regulations and DoD policies and procedures instituted to safeguard protected health information (PHI)
Assuring that all key personnel involved in human research have completed the required education for the protection of human research participants
Developing materials and tools necessary to appropriately train individuals involved in the conduct of the study around issues related to (but not limited to) protocol requirements, schedule of visits, execution of research plan
Attending investigator meetings as required or requested
Preparing other study materials as requested, including but not limited to, informed consent document, case report forms (CRFs), enrollment logs, and study data
Assuring that the study complies with all terms and conditions
Coordinating participant tests and procedures, including interviewing families about the medical history of the tissue donor
Maintaining adequate inventory of study supplies
Maintaining effective and ongoing communication with sponsor, research participants and supervisor during the course of the study
Preparing and submitting any modifications to the scientific protocol
Day-to-day activities of the study including problem solving, communication and protocol management
Promptly reports any unanticipated problems