CSB331 Paramedic Clinical Practice 1

Unit Outline: Summer 2024, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

This unit is in the developmental stage of your course and builds on the work you learned in CSB330 and CSB332. This unit provides you with opportunities to build practice and provide evidence of your development as a clinician in a supervised environment. Additionally it is fundamental to this course that you are exposed to an appropriate case load of suitable patients in the out of hospital phase. This unit is the first in a series of three that provide the work integrated learning experience. Over a six week period, you will be required to complete approximately 240 hours of placement to be conducted externally through the Queensland Ambulance Service.

This is a designated unit which is essential to your course progression. Designated units include professional experience units, units requiring the development of particular skills, and units requiring demonstration of certain personal qualities. If you fail to achieve a satisfactory level of performance in a designated unit, you may be excluded from enrolment or will be put on academic probation. If you fail a designated unit twice within your course, you may be excluded. Supplementary assessment is not available on designated units.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Work collaboratively as team assistant and observer for an active ambulance crew
2. Apply basic patient assessment skills, clinical reasoning to patient presentation of clinical problems;
3. Apply professional and interpersonal communication skills in the provision of patient care in various contexts and modes;
4. Reflect on scene management, patient extrication, handover techniques and strategies, your experiences and the professional and personal challenges of paramedic work.

Content

Learning Approaches

This unit engages you in experiential learning through the reflection of performance in the course experience to date, contributes to motivation of self and others; to monitor one's continuing personal and professional development. Knowledge of how self, identity and culture influence the care of patients is encouraged through reflections on the learning experiences, and its application and your competency is evidenced in practice in your portfolio.

Your mentored clinical experience is vital. It is during this time you begin to transfer your knowledge and skills into the environment where you will practice as an ambulance paramedic. Your Paramedic Mentor will guide and support you throughout this and your future field practicums. In your clinical foundation units in semester 1 and 2 you were introduced to the ambulance environment as an observer. The challenge for you now is to transition from observer, where we introduce foundational clinical leadership skills, to an operational ambulance crew member in the supervised capacity as a student paramedic. The speed at which you transition is dependent on your confidence, ability to reflect and real world learning experiences.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

You will receive continuous ongoing feedback and support from your clinical mentors identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement. You will be required to maintain a journal of your supervised clinical experience. QUT staff will review the clinical logs and if necessary extra clinical placements and/or simulation will be arranged. Adequate mentored clinical experience is a prerequisite for completing this unit.
Feedback will be provided by the clinical mentors throughout the practicum via the interim and final clinical assessment tool (CAT). Feedback will be provided on reflective case study via Canvas grade book.

Assessment

Overview

General assessment information
There are three items of assessment to be completed in this unit. Each item is designed to assess particular learning outcomes. Each item of assessment must be completed at a satisfactory level in order to achieve an overall passing grade in this unit.

Threshold assessment conditions
In this unit, for you to be eligible to receive a passing grade, threshold assessment conditions apply. You are required to achieve a satisfactory result in all items of assessment to receive an S (satisfactory) result in the unit. If you do not achieve a satisfactory result for an assessment task you are able to make one resubmission of this work. You are advised to seek feedback on your submission from the unit coordinator prior to resubmission.

N.B. Resubmission is not usually available for U (unsatisfactory) result for placement performance.

Unit Grading Scheme

S (Satisfactory) / U (Unsatisfactory)

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Self Reflection

In a profession as challenging as Paramedicine, continued self assessment and reflection is essential. In your assessment task you will be required to provide self reflection on the main competencies being assessed throughout your placement period. These include: Patient assessment skills, interprofessional and patient communication, managing professional and environmental challenges, decision making and clinical competencies. You must examine both the negative and positive aspects of your performance and offer suggestions for continued improvement. This will be submitted in an electronic assessment tool which will be sent to the individual student in the final week of their placement. The self assessment must be submitted no later than one week after the completion of your final shift.

This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.

Grade: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Assessment: In-field Assessment

This is a six (6) week placement as a third person with a paramedic crew. Clinical mentors will provide feedback via a specifically designed assessment tool, on your demonstrated team skills, observational skills, your assistance to operational crews, following directions, your ability to reason, problem solve and demonstration of professional and interpersonal communication skills, when engaging in patient care.

Grade: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Assessment: OSCE

Assessment name:Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)

This scenario based assessment is an on-campus physical and/or oral demonstration of knowledge of patient presentation, articulation of your rationale for decisions and your patient management clinical skills.

Grade: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.

Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Blue Card

A blue card is required to complete this unit. A blue card confirms that you have passed a screening of your criminal history (the Working with Children Check) and have been approved to work with children and young people. For more information on the blue card and how to apply please visit the QUT website.

Resources

Resource Materials

Prescribed text(s)

Queensland Ambulance Service (2015). Clinical practice manual. Brisbane: Available online at: https://ambulance.qld.gov.au/clinical.html

Other

All texts used in first and second semester units.

Risk Assessment Statement

Out of hospital care can be hazardous. You are required to work as part of an operational crew responding to emergency 000 calls. There is regular exposure to high speed driving, body fluids, medical sharps, defibrillators and sometimes aggressive patients in the off campus phase of the unit. Your clinical practice is supervised at all time during this unit and the QUT student paramedic uniform and appropriate personal protective equipment as purchased from 'What's in a Name' (http://www.whatsinaname.net.au) or other advised supplier must be worn during this placement.