Laparoscopic Skills Lab Operations Officer

Role Overview

This position keeps a hospital-based surgical skills laboratory running smoothly day to day, acting as the single point of control over who enters the space, what equipment and consumables are on hand, and how each training session is set up and documented. You will work at the intersection of logistics and education, coordinating schedules with faculty and residents while making sure learners arrive to stations that are prepared, safe, and properly recorded. The role matters because training quality depends on it: a missed repair, an unlocked cabinet, or an unlabeled recording can quietly derail a workshop and the assessment data that follows from it.

Key Responsibilities

• Control laboratory access and security. Hold and safeguard room keys, enroll authorized users in the biometric system, and issue short-term access for workshops, faculty, residents, and visiting groups. Keep the access roster accurate, retire permissions as soon as they are no longer needed, open and secure the lab around approved activities, and flag any loss, damage, or security concern without delay.
• Own the equipment inventory. Maintain a live master register of cameras, monitors, instruments, trainers, recording gear, accessories, and consumables, capturing identification numbers, condition, storage location, and service status. Keep everything labeled, clean, and staged for immediate use, and complete daily operational checks.
• Drive maintenance, repairs, and restocking. Carry out safe first-line troubleshooting within your training and authority, escalate technical or clinical problems promptly, and coordinate preventive maintenance with vendors or biomedical services. Follow every open repair through to completion and reorder consumables early enough that no scheduled session is cut short.
• Run the laboratory schedule and prepare sessions. Confirm bookings before publishing them to users, guard against double-booking, and resolve conflicts before they reach the training floor. Contact expected visiting groups at least monthly to lock down dates, participant numbers, learning objectives, faculty, specimen, recording, and access needs, then prepare stations, instruments, checklists, sign-in materials, and audiovisual equipment ahead of each session. Support off-site trips by documenting what is transported, confirming return arrangements, and reconciling all items afterward.
• Maintain training records and video. Keep complete attendance and sign-in documentation for every session and visiting group. Label, review, and upload training video promptly, maintain an index of what has been posted, and protect records from unauthorized access, alteration, or loss while following approved retention and deletion rules. Provide accurate learner progress data for the LAPP program and program reviews.
• Handle specimens, cleanliness, and safe practice. Coordinate the timing, quantity, transport, receipt, storage, and preparation of animal organs or other training specimens so they are ready when the session begins. Apply hospital infection-prevention requirements, including PPE, biological-material handling, decontamination, and waste segregation, and confirm at the close of each day that equipment, sharps, specimens, waste, and surfaces have been managed safely and the room is ready for the next group.
• Support learners and faculty. Orient each participant to the LAPP program and skills laboratory before training, covering objectives, layout, access, equipment handling, safety and cleanliness expectations, and recording requirements, and complete their enrollment. Build practical familiarity with the lab's laparoscopic skills, simulation tasks, assessment tools, and workflow under faculty guidance. Review training video and give faculty and residents feedback that is timely, specific, and respectful, grounded in LAPP objectives, checklists, and proficiency standards, while referring any clinical question, disputed assessment, or significant learner concern to the responsible faculty member or Medical Education Programs Coordinator. Gather user feedback and propose concrete improvements to lab flow, readiness, materials, and data quality.
• Report and escalate. Deliver a weekly report to the Medical Education Programs Coordinator covering sessions completed and planned, learner progress, attendance, inventory condition, consumable needs, equipment downtime, incidents, and open risks, plus a monthly report on LAPP projects and trips with outcomes, resources used, lessons learned, and the coming month's plan. Raise significant equipment loss or damage, access or confidentiality breaches, safety events, and specimen-handling concerns immediately, along with anything likely to cancel or seriously disrupt training.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Demonstrated critical thinking and problem-solving: able to trace a problem to its cause, test a practical fix, and recognize when an issue belongs with someone else.
• Strong organizational habits and close attention to detail, with a track record of juggling multiple schedules, training groups, equipment demands, and deadlines at once.
• High personal integrity and accountability when handling restricted access, confidential records, and expensive, delicate equipment.
• Clear written and spoken communication, including the confidence and professionalism to offer constructive feedback to surgeons, faculty, residents, and other learners.
• Curiosity and self-directed learning, with genuine willingness to master laparoscopic equipment, simulation tasks, training workflows, and the LAPP skills curriculum.
• Working digital fluency: calendars, spreadsheets, electronic records, video capture, consistent file naming, uploading, and everyday troubleshooting.
• Ability to work unsupervised, triage urgent operational needs, see unresolved matters through, and surface risks early.
• A collaborative manner suited to working respectfully with clinical faculty, residents, visiting groups, Medical Education staff, and hospital support departments.
• Education, training, or employment history that demonstrates the competencies above.
• Prior experience in a skills laboratory, simulation center, training program, clinical setting, technical workshop, equipment service environment, events operation, or a comparable role.
• Hands-on background with inventory upkeep, repair coordination, audiovisual systems, or digital training records.
• Familiarity with infection-prevention practices, personal protective equipment, and the safe handling and disposal of biological training specimens.