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About the Role

University Health Network (UHN) is seeking an experienced Veterinary Technician for its Animal Resource Centre. This role involves basic animal husbandry for multiple species of laboratory animals, ensuring their health and welfare. Responsibilities include colony management, health monitoring, treatments, and technical services like blood draws and drug administration. The position requires daily communication with veterinarians and lab staff regarding animal health and welfare.

Responsibilities

Performing feeding, watering, and cage changing as per ARC Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the species.
Ensuring appropriate environmental enrichment for the species as per ARC SOP.
Caring for special research models, including immune-deficient mice.
Caring for large animal species as per protocol.
Caring for, cleaning, and maintaining assigned animal housing rooms and associated equipment.
Caring for animals in Biohazard areas, following proper SOP, PPE, and decontamination procedures.
Maintaining responsibility for animal health and welfare, conducting daily visual inspections, and alerting veterinarians to health issues.
Carrying out veterinary instructions for treatments, including administering drugs.
Updating sick cases and treatment sheets.
Notifying lab groups of issues concerning their animals.
Performing necropsy or tissue collection, including ecto/endo parasite checks, microbiological samples, blood/serum samples, and tissue for histology.
Performing tissue sampling and post-mortems as directed by the attending veterinarian.
Ensuring room and facility conditions meet provincial and federal guidelines for animal holding areas, including record-keeping for environmental conditions.
Alerting Supervisor and/or Physical Plant Staff of any issues regarding environmental conditions.
Carrying out QA measures as directed by Supervisor or Manager, including pH reading, air settle plates, and fomite swabs.
Overseeing QA measures in dirty and clean cage wash-up areas by Animal Care personnel.
Packaging tissue and biological samples appropriately for shipment.
Carrying out technical services on a fee-for-service basis for laboratory staff, including breeding colony maintenance, identification, DNA sampling, drug dosing, blood or tissue sampling, and injections.
Administering drugs or treatments as directed by the on-call veterinarian.
Maintaining record-keeping for breeding colonies and technical services for billing and invoicing.
Performing cage inventory and/or animal counts for invoicing to investigators.
Inputting inventory data into spreadsheets for colony census or breeding programs.
Ensuring valid animal use protocol numbers are on cage cards and outside animal holding rooms.
Performing other administrative duties as assigned by the Supervisor or Manager.

Requirements

Completion of a community college program in Veterinary Technology or recognized equivalent.
Minimum one year of practical and related experience and/or 2 years on-the-job training required.
Previous experience within a laboratory animal facility.
Previous experience working with large animals in a research setting.
Experience handling laboratory animals, both rodents and larger animal species.
WHMIS training.
Ability to utilize Excel, Word, and Outlook at moderate proficiency.
Ability to lift 50 lbs.
No known allergies to animals.
Exercise initiative and time management skills.
Effective and professional organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills.
Exercise good judgment with the ability to multi-task.
Compliance with confidentiality requirements.
Ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
Ability to perform duties in a professional and courteous manner and produce high-quality work while meeting deadlines.
Knowledge of applicable legislative, UHN, and/or departmental policies.
Client service oriented, with the ability to effectively work with diversity.
Current UHN employees must have successfully completed their probationary period, have a good employee record, and satisfactory attendance.
A Criminal Record Check may be required of the successful candidate.
Information provided by a candidate must be accurate and not misleading.

Skills

Animal husbandry
Colony management
Health monitoring
Technical services (blood draws, gavage, drug administration)
Communication with veterinarians and lab staff
Excel
Word
Outlook

Location

Max Bell
TGH
TWH
Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower

Work Type

Permanent Full Time

Experience Level

Minimum one year practical and related experience
2 years on-the-job training

Education Level

Community college program in Veterinary Technology or recognized equivalent
Registration with Canadian Association for Laboratory Animal Science as a Registered Laboratory Animal Technician (may be obtained after employment)

Salary/Compensations

CAD 31.02 - CAD 38.78 per hour

Benefits

Competitive offer packages
Government organization
Member of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP)
Close access to Transit and UHN shuttle service
Flexible work environment
Opportunities for development and promotions within a large organization
Additional perks (multiple corporate discounts including: travel, restaurants, parking, phone plans, auto insurance discounts, on-site gyms, etc.)

About the Company

UHN is Canada’s #1 hospital and the world’s #1 publicly funded hospital.
With 10 sites and more than 44,000 TeamUHN members, UHN consists of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, The Michener Institute of Education and West Park Healthcare Centre.
As Canada's top research hospital, the scope of biomedical research and complexity of cases at UHN have made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care.
UHN has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in neurosciences, cardiology, transplantation, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine.
UHN is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto.
UHN’s vision is to build A Healthier World.

Equal Opportunity

UHN is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive recruitment process and workplace.
Requests for accommodation can be made at any stage of the recruitment process.
Applicants need to make their requirements known.