Clinical Veterinarian

Description

The Clinical Veterinarian (CV) has responsibility for all aspects of veterinary care for beagles, cats, ferrets, and minipigs. This includes those aspects of husbandry that impact animal health, and all elements of health care, including observations, treatments, procedures, and surgeries. The CV shares these responsibilities with other clinical veterinary staff. The CV, as a member of the veterinary staff, has authority to make final decisions regarding animal health and welfare. The CV interacts closely with the Director of Veterinary Care (DV), the Director of Production (DP), Animal Health Supervisor, and management. The CV reports to the Director of Veterinary Care. 

Specific responsibilities of the Clinical Veterinarian include: 

Domestic/ International Animal Health 

• Provide professional guidance and input related to animal health, welfare and veterinary issues at foreign beagle kennels
• Participation in regular conference calls with DP and international staff
• Develop vaccination and treatment procedures
• Interaction with international veterinary staff
• Visits to the international kennels (several times a year)
• Addressing selected veterinary or animal health concerns from domestic and foreign customers
• Furthering efforts to harmonize animal care and welfare across sites and other related duties as assigned
• Shared veterinary responsibilities in the domestic beagle, cat, minipig and ferret colonies with DV
• Provide guidance for the detection dog health monitoring, vaccination, physical exams, and sick calls. These responsibilities will be shared with DV.

Consultation 

• Verbal consultations daily with the DV regarding all on-going animal health concerns in all areas
• Participate in minimum once weekly direct clinical consult (walk throughs) with the AHC, or designee, or the area supervisors in the following areas: MF-B15, MF whelp buildings, back up for minipigs as needed
• Participate as a backup as a direct clinical consult (enter barrier) with the various barrier production supervisors to discuss clinical, husbandry, or production problems; and provide continued training as needed for technician activities, such as treatments, procedures and pre-shipment examinations
• Participate in minimum twice monthly direct clinical consult (walk throughs) with the AHC and production personnel

Animal Shipment 

• Ensure all animals are determined to be in a state of good health prior to shipment for research or as pets; inspect all individual beagles, cats, and minipigs prior to shipment and routinely inspects groups of ferrets to verify suitability for shipment
• Participate in the oversight of the pre-shipment examination of beagles, cats, ferrets, and minipigs by technical staff to ensure all customer and internal pre-shipment requirements are met and provide training as needed to technical staff regarding pre-shipment examination requirements

Necropsy Program 

• Participate in all aspects of postmortem assessments, including gross examinations and any specific ancillary testing including blood work, microbiology, and histopathology
• Participate in the investigation of spontaneous or scheduled mortality through post mortem examination; includes timely submission of specimens and oversight of all technician activities which include sample collection and gross exams
• Participate in minimum once weekly direct consult of postmortem procedures conducted by the AHC’s trained designee
• Participate in the investigation of disease and tracking of on-going entities through periodic assessments that include trends in incidence and response to treatment

Surgery and Procedures 

• Participate as needed in both elective and non-elective surgeries, including pre-shipment neutering and cesarean sections in beagles, cats, and ferrets
• Oversee procedural competency and conduct training as necessary of technical staff for to maintain animal health; and for customer-driven postmortem organ/tissue collection

Regulatory Activities and Customer Interaction

• Interact with pet and research ferret areas. This includes interactions, by phone or email with MBR/MPP sales staff and/or customers directly to address questions or concerns related to animal health and MBR procedures 
• Interact with animal regulatory authorities including USDA and participate in on-site inspections, as well as telephone and other communications; possess a strong working knowledge of all pertinent animal welfare regulations and interact with veterinary staff, DP, and management to ensure on-going compliance
• Interface with customers as needed and determined by management, including on-site and off-site customer visits, customer interchange at scientific meetings, and telephone and e-mail inquiries
• May involve attendance at trade shows, participation in customer visits to MF and occasional visits to customer facilities may be required. 

Requirements

DVM is required. 

Competency Requirements: Individual will proficiently interact with cross-functional teams and possess good organizational skills, and written and verbal communication skills. Individual will be capable of working with various computer applications including CEDRIC, Microsoft Word & Excel. Individual has mastery level of knowledge related to animal care and behavior. Individual will be required to effectively and consistently perform above listed Essential Tasks.

Leadership Requirements: Individual will be expected to envision potential, foster enthusiasm and commitment in colleagues in departmental performance and institutional goals. They will have the ability to lead challenging personnel, foster an environment that encourages thoughtful initiative, ownership, and responsibility for actions. They will be charged to motivate and develop personnel and inspire trust among peers, supervisors, and organizational leadership. Individual will contribute to a productive and professional environment by setting a positive example and demonstrating enthusiasm, diligence, and ethical behavior and by taking responsibility for ones’ actions and challenging oneself to continually improve.

Work Conditions: Conditions are often hot and humid, with frequent animal contact. Work area may have a high level of noise, requiring earplugs. Duties are performed primarily on 1st shift with varying extended hours.

Physical Requirement: Work is physically demanding with a requirement to lift animals.

Mental Requirement: Minimum mental requirements necessary to perform key tasks of job to include but not limited to effective interpersonal communication, maintain attention to detail, comprehension (oral & written), understanding interrelationships between processes/activities, ability to forecast and anticipate consequences to actions, ability to coordinate activities logically, problem solving, maintain confidentiality, work with constant interruptions, stress, etc.

About Marshall Farms Group, Ltd.

Our mission is to help improve the lives of people and pets. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on fulfilling this mission by supporting our ability to provide animals and related services to the top research organizations across the globe – aiding their lifesaving biomedical and veterinary research. In addition, we leverage our extensive breeding experience as a preferred supplier to detection dog training programs; and are the leading provider of Pet Ferrets. Over the last 80 years we have grown from a local to a global company, but we haven't lost our family feel and employee-centric focus.

Marshall Farms Group, LTD is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.