Course Access
Did you catch our June Member Profile interview with Dr Jessica Hoopes from AMRRIC?
You can read the full interview below, in which Jessica speaks about her veterinary career, experience doing the Veterinary Foundations of IPC course, her thoughts on the rise of zoonoses and the importance of IPC in veterinary settings.
Working in a veterinary setting and interested in the Veterinary Foundations of IPC course?
With 11 self-paced modules over six months, this course fits your busy schedule.
The 2025 course starts on 6 August – book here:
https://www.acipc.org.au/education/veterinary-foundations-of-ipc/
Member profile – Dr Jessica Hoopes
One Health Research Coordinator
Animal Management in Rural and Remote Indigenous Communities (AMRRIC)
Can you tell us a bit about your career so far and how you came to be working for AMRRIC (Animal Management in Rural and Remote Indigenous Communities)?
I’m a trained veterinarian, but these days I work more in research. I’ve wanted to be a vet since I was three — I was one of those kids who bandaged pets unnecessarily and adopted any animal that looked hurt. I even had a little “hospital” in the backyard.
To get into vet school in Canada, you need a lot of experience, so I started young — volunteering at clinics and working with feral cats from age 12. After finishing vet school, I worked in private practice but quickly realised it wasn’t for me.
I travelled a bit and saw firsthand in countries like Costa Rica how great the need was for veterinary services. I was always drawn to animal welfare and not-for-profit work, so I took an animal shelter job in Fiji and later in Papua New Guinea.
That experience opened my eyes to something bigger. I started seeing how human and animal health is connected — what we now call “One Health.” A key moment was in a community where I’d been helping with dogs who were bothering tourists. A local girl there got a cut that became badly infected and she was febrile, but they couldn’t get her to a doctor. I had spent so long telling them how to care for their dogs — but I hadn’t realised they were struggling just to access basic healthcare for their children.
Luckily she survived, but that moment really shifted my thinking. I realised I’d been too focused on the animal side, without truly understanding the challenges these communities face.
That’s how I ended up working for AMRRIC, where I now focus on One Health research — looking at the connections between human and animal health, especially in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. I still volunteer in the Pacific too.
My role is about figuring out what works in communities with limited resources — how to improve outcomes for both people and animals. It’s a mix of research and real-world application. My colleagues and I often say we’re not quite academics and not quite frontline workers — we try to bring both worlds together. It’s challenging, but it feels like the right space for us.
Do you think that since COVID, we have become more zoonotic disease aware as a community?
I think the research community definitely has, and the general public now has a much better understanding of health and disease than before. During COVID, people learned a lot — how tests work, how vaccines are made — things most had never thought about before.
But I think that awareness peaked during the height of the pandemic, and once the immediate crisis passed, people went back to their usual routines. We’re better at responding when there’s a threat, but it’s hard to keep that same level of awareness all the time, especially when resources and time are limited.
To be honest, I expected the pandemic to push the concept of One Health (the connection between human, animal, and environmental health) further into the mainstream. But even now, I still talk to health professionals who’ve never heard of it.
So yes, we’ve made progress — but not as much as many of us had hoped.
What attracted you to the Veterinary Foundations of IPC course?
IPC has become central to my work recently. At AMRRIC, we’ve been doing internal reviews and audits to see how we can improve our practices — and IPC was something I had never really thought about before. Like many vets, my focus used to be on just treating the animal. But now we’re looking at the downstream effects of what we do — like how to reduce antibiotic use by improving our procedures in the first place.
In the resource-limited communities we work in, basic things like sterilising instruments with an autoclave aren’t always possible — we’re flying into remote areas with limited gear. So the standard guidelines don’t always apply. For example, they might talk about airflow in surgical theatres — but we’re working outdoors under shelters. So we often feel like the gold standard is out of reach.
The veterinary industry is less regulated than human healthcare, which makes sense because veterinary clinics aren’t supported by things like Medicare, and many clinics couldn’t afford to meet the same standards. But that doesn’t mean IPC isn’t important. I This course really helps break that mindset of “I can’t do it”, and instead gets you thinking, “What can I do better?” Now that I’m not in the middle of hectic clinical work, I have the space to reflect and help others improve too.
Every patient has a human attached — the pet owner — and everything we do affects the broader environment. We need to keep reminding ourselves that our work is part of One Health, even if it’s not always obvious. We don’t want to be the ones contributing to the next pandemic.
Tell me about your experience in the course and what you found most useful.
The course really got me thinking about things I’d stopped noticing in day-to-day practice. One example was the issue of chlorhexidine contamination with Pseudomonas — something simple but with major implications. I realised nearly every clinic I’ve worked in refills tubs of chlorhexidine wipes without cleaning/replacing them, which can lead to contamination. These are the kinds of small but meaningful changes the course highlighted — things that don’t drastically disrupt operations but can significantly improve outcomes.
I appreciated that the course focused on what’s realistically achievable, especially in high-volume clinics where you’re turning over patients quickly and didn’t make me feel bad for not doing everything perfectly. Instead, it motivated me to identify what can be improved and to start making changes.
The content was really engaging. It wasn’t something I put off — I actually enjoyed doing it. The format is flexible: you can go at your own pace, and support is there if you need it. You can engage deeply or just take in what you can manage — either way, it’s valuable.
Would you recommend the course to others?
I already have! I think anyone 10+ years out of vet or nursing school should do it — we all get complacent. But I also think it’s especially useful for managers or anyone responsible for infection control or workplace safety. They may not be vets or nurses, so this course helps them understand best practice and have informed conversations with their teams.
It’s also helpful for researchers working in field programmes, because IPC often doesn’t get factored into project design. The course gives a solid foundation to help change that.
What do you think could improve buy-in for IPC in veterinary settings?
I think it comes down to visibility. People forget IPC unless something goes wrong. The protocols might be on the wall, but they’re not front of mind..
That’s why practical examples matter. When I shared the chlorhexidine contamination info with others, they were shocked — and many of them immediately changed their practices. It wasn’t forced — they just hadn’t known. Once they saw the importance, they acted.
I don’t think the veterinary industry is ready for strict IPC regulations like human healthcare. Most clinics wouldn’t be able to meet them financially, and pushing hard rules could cause resistance — both from clinics and clients.
I think gradual, motivated change works better. For example, if a clinic has to raise fees slightly due to an IPC improvement, explaining the benefit to the pet can help gain support.
Also, IPC in vet practice can feel out of reach — especially for remote or mobile programs where you might be operating in a shed or on a dirt floor. When the gold standard feels impossible, people disengage. But if you give them a small, doable step, they’re much more likely to start trying.
How do you like to relax and unwind at the end of a busy week?
Most of my downtime is spent with my daughter — we do a lot of crafting together, and we love going camping. Camping is funny because it’s a total shift from my usual infection control mindset — suddenly you’re roasting marshmallows on sticks you found on the ground, and no one’s asking where they came from! The hygiene standards definitely drop out there — what we tolerate camping is very different to what we’d accept in our kitchen.
My daughter’s already talking about becoming a vet — she’s been around vet clinics since she was a baby, especially because I’ve worked in the Pacific. She sees our two pets as her siblings and is very into animal care. She’s also inherited some of my concern for public health. During COVID, when people weren’t wearing masks, she’d go up to them (at just two years old!) and say, “You should wear a mask to be respectful.” She’s got the IPC spirit in her already!