The County of Riverside is seeking a dedicated Chief Veterinarian to oversee the Department of Animal Services' Veterinary Services Team. This pivotal role involves managing a team of 50 veterinary professionals, delivering crucial services such as spay and neuter surgeries, shelter medicine, and public pet wellness programs. The Chief Veterinarian will also play a vital role in public health by managing animal bite reporting, prevention, and disease surveillance.

• Manage, coordinate, supervise, and maintain veterinary medical facilities and services at all Department of Animal Services' shelters.
• Consult with the Director of Animal Services in developing, implementing, and evaluating County veterinary programs.
• Create animal welfare, disease control, and prevention training materials for the Department of Animal Services.
• Lead training exercises at all County facilities.
• Perform and/or oversee physical and postmortem examinations on a variety of animals to make diagnoses or pathological findings.
• Administer and/or oversee anesthesia and/or other medication as needed.
• Provide surgical and medical care for a variety of sick and injured animals.
• Oversee the administration of immunizations on animals for purposes of disease control.
• Coordinate with the State Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and others for evaluation and recognition of possible biological threats.
• Supervise subordinates to ensure clinic and mobile unit work is effectively organized and operationally efficient.
• Assign and review work of subordinate staff.
• Respond to inquiries from the public and department employees relative to medical activities.
• Interpret for other departments, governmental agencies, public or private organizations, and interested individuals the state and local laws, rules, and regulations related to animal health and disease.
• Oversee proper records management pertaining to medical activities.
• Respond to cruelty cases and instruct in the proper care and treatment of animals.
• Represent the County as an expert witness during cruelty case legal proceedings.
• Serve in an official capacity as Director of Shelter Medicine and County Veterinarian.
• Tactfully and diplomatically deal with sensitive political and community concerns under stressful circumstances.
• Prepare and monitor the Veterinary Services Team budget.
• Attend local, state, and federal conferences as the County Veterinarian, taking the lead to ensure adherence to animal services policy.
• Perform legislative analysis for possible implementation.
• Prepare reports and compose correspondence.
• Oversee protocols pertaining to controlled substances, logs, and medical records.
• Develop new medical protocols and continue to evaluate and improve existing protocols.
• Perform surgeries.
• Provide shelter animals with physical exams, vaccinations, treatment, and diagnosis, and temporary relief for Veterinary Surgeons, as required.

• Possession of a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from an accredited U.S. college or university of veterinary medicine at the time of appointment.
• A minimum of three years of performing veterinary medicine, which must have included shelter medicine, supervision of shelter staff, and veterinary program responsibility.
• A valid license to practice veterinary medicine in the State of California.
• Possession of a valid California Driver's License.
• Knowledge of principles and practices of current veterinary medicine, animal diseases and their prevention, control, and eradication, current veterinary practices and techniques relating to the treatment of injured animals, County, state, and federal animal health laws and regulations, animal regulation procedures and problems, County customer service objectives and strategies.
• Ability to administer, oversee, and coordinate Countywide animal medical and regulatory programs, provide surgical and medical services and care for a variety of well, sick, and injured animals, including a high volume of spay and neutering operations, analyze critical medical and administrative situations and take effective action, provide state-of-the-art, high-quality animal medical services in the most efficient manner, evaluate program quality, cost, and overall effectiveness to recommend and implement changes and improvements, hire, train, supervise, and evaluate subordinate veterinarians and technical personnel, use team-building skills to ensure that Veterinary Services staff maintains high morale and works well with other public and private organizations, establish effective working relationships with management, employees, employee representatives, and the public representing diverse cultures and backgrounds, treat County employees, representatives of outside agencies, and members of the public with courtesy and respect in stressful and sensitive situations, assess the customer's immediate needs and ensure customer's receipt of needed services through personal service or referral, exercise appropriate judgment in answering questions and releasing information, analyze and project consequences of decisions and/or recommendations, effectively communicate orally and in writing.