Job Type:

Employee

Duration in Months(for fixed-term jobs):

24

Job Family:

Laboratory Support

# of Open Positions:

1

Faculty/Service - Department:

Anatomy Operations

Campus:

Roger Guindon Hall

Union Affiliation:

SSUO

Date Posted (YYYY/MM/DD):

2025/09/25

Applications must be received BEFORE (YYYY/MM/DD):

2025/10/06

Hours per week:

35

Salary Grade:

SSUO Grade 05

Salary Range:

$49,827.00 - $62,936.00About the Faculty of Medicine
Welcome to the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, the first and largest bilingual medical faculty in Canada. Our learners have access to state-of-the art facilities and specialized institutions as they learn alongside world-class physicians and scientists. Consistently ranked among the top 10 medical schools in Canada, our faculty is among the top faculties of medicine in the world for research impact in biomedical and health sciences.

Position Purpose:

Provide support with various operational and cleaning tasks within our specialized body donation environment. Assist in all aspects of embalming, preservation, and storage of human cadavers in the anatomical morgue. Maintain high standards of cleanliness and order in both the embalming morgue and gross laboratory areas, ensuring a well-organized and professional facility.

Specific Accountabilities:

Specimen care: Prepare solutions and take care of specimen maintenance. Ensure that cadavers are covered appropriately at all times. Prepare embalming trays with relevant instruments. Ensure that tubing is readily available. Inspect all tables to ensure they are in working order and that chemical waste receptors are in place.

Accept donations transported to the laboratory. Prepare the specimen prior to storage. This includes ensuring that all cadavers have identification tags and these are replaced as required.

Cleaning and maintaining inventory: Responsibilities include cleaning all rooms, equipment, and instruments. Maintain and organize the library. Collect and dispose of regular and chemical waste in designated areas. Assist with the setup and cleanup of workshops and classes. Prepare lab coats and draping cloths for laundry services. Organize lab displays, workspaces, storage shelves, and student lab coats. Restock lab supplies, including refilling soap dispensers and paper towels. Ensure computer screens and keyboards are clean and functioning properly. Report any issues via the Medtech ticket system. Clean both the interior and exterior of bone cabinets. Responsible for managing the inventory of instruments and specimens, as well as repairing bones in both anatomy lab and UGME classes.

Collaborate with Senior Prosectors to create and maintain procedural manuals, labels, and various forms. Ensure that the embalming and latex documentation is current. Keep the laundry, embalming, and specimen rooms fully stocked. Cross-reference inventory logs to verify the accuracy of refrigerated and chemical supplies. Maintain an up-to-date catalog of anatomical specimens. Repair and maintain the educational inventory. Check and record fridge and freezer temperatures daily, reporting any issues to the Senior Prosectors and Lab Manager. Ensure eye wash stations are functioning properly. Maintain daily records of fridge temperatures.

Administrative Support: Provide administrative support to the Anatomy Division, including tasks such as preparing letters and packages, assisting with various projects, helping to organize and attend the memorial service, and supporting educational activities. Handle supply orders as needed. Assist with managing learner access to anatomical specimens and ultrasound equipment for POCUS sessions, ensuring that all necessary supplies are organized and readily available.

Lab support: May be required to assist with accepting donations during evenings and weekends. Additionally, provide administrative support as a backup to the Body Donation Officer and prosectors, including coordinating communication with funeral homes and donor families, managing necessary documentation, and ensuring compliance with legal and ethical protocols. Assist in scheduling and logistics for the transfer of donations and help maintain accurate records of donor information. Participate in responding to inquiries from donor families and funeral homes, providing compassionate and timely communication.

Knowledge, Experience and Skills

Essential Qualifications:

• Basic knowledge of administration, database entries, cleaning and organization.
• A secondary school diploma along with a minimum of 2 years’ experience working in a lab setting or equivalent education and experience.

Key Competencies:

• Planning
• Initiative
• Client service orientation
• Teamwork and cooperation

Other Qualifications:

• Ability for heavy lifting (30-80 lbs) and sustained physical effort.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to function well in a team environment and be able to adhere to written standard operating procedures and follow verbal instructions.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills both verbally and written.
• Must be comfortable in the presence of cadavers and working in a morgue-like setting as well as tolerate chemicals used to fix the bodies.
• Ability to produce high quality work under pressure while meeting strict deadlines.
• Ability to interact with grieving individuals in a sensitive manner and with empathy, tact, and diplomacy.
• Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to be flexible.
• Strong ability to maintain professionalism and confidentiality.
• Bilingualism – spoken/written (English/French)

Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa:

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 – Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.