The purpose of this competency is to assess your performance as an observable indicator of their readiness to become a graduate entry level sonographer. The criteria examined is that which is required for a sonographer to demonstrate their knowledge and skill to perform in an area of sonographic practice. The assessment criteria are based on the core minimum requirements for a graduate level sonographer as defined by the Professional Competency Framework for Sonographers.

This practical assessment examines your clinical ultrasound scanning abilities when performing an ultrasound examination in one of six domains of practice; vascular (DVT or carotid), superficial structures (thyroid or testes), breast (female or male), musculoskeletal (shoulder), abdomen, and pelvic (transabdominal and transvaginal) in combination with, or any obstetric examination (first, second or third trimester). Prior to and alongside this clinical placement you will have studied the anatomy, pathophysiology, sonographic appearance, and scanning technique. You have completed extensive scanning skills training on normal volunteers and gained practical experience on clinical placement. 

This assessment should be conducted before the end of week 10 of the clinical placement. You are permitted 1 re-attempt to complete this assessment. 

Your supervisor will complete the assessment with you present and will discuss any areas that they feel are not performing at a satisfactory level. It is anticipated that your supervisor will ask you questions to ascertain your knowledge of anatomy, pathology, scanning technique, rationale for any extended scan and scan findings. Your supervisor will provide you with an opportunity to ask questions that will allow the you to improve your clinical ultrasound skills in future placements.

Your assessor will grade you on each criterion according to how dependent you are upon their direction and support. Competent indicates largely independent practice requiring direction or prompting only on complex or unusual cases. The grade checked will best describing your average performance in each area, and describe a specific example of good performance or areas for improvement in the comments box on page 4. In order to Pass this competency, you must achieve Level 2 in all assessment areas, which is at the ‘advanced beginner’ (student) level. 

Please see the attached practical assessment criteria for your reference.

Clinical placement occurs in the professional workplace. As a clinical student, you are provided access to that workplace on the condition that you demonstrate behaviour and attributes of a healthcare professional and present a positive image to the clinical facility's staff and clients. As a student in the medical sonographer profession in Australia, you are also required to be working toward consistent compliance with the Code of Conduct for Medical Sonographers. The purpose of the GAPA is for the student to demonstrate their competency in the holistic matrix key components that are fundamental for sonographer practice as detailed in the Professional Competency Framework for Sonographers.

Your clinical supervisor, or delegate, will be working in the sonography area with you, directly observing your day-to-day performance. These observations and collected feedback relate to your demonstrated knowledge, skills and behaviour over a span of time, not limited to a particular scan type or patient case. The observations and feedback are then used to complete the Global Assessment of Professional Attributes (GAPA) form provided.

There are three main sections to the GAPA form:

• Section 1: Applied Knowledge
• Section 2: Psychomotor Skills (scanning skills) and Standard of Work
• Section 3: Professionalism

In each section there are multiple observable behaviour that you are required to demonstrate throughout your placement. Your assessor will score your performance based on how frequently and to what extent you demonstrate each of the listed behaviour. Your assessor is also encouraged to provide comments to expand on the scoring feedback. This assessment occurs twice during the placement; mid-placement GAPA (week 5) and end placement GAPA (week 10). 

The mid-placement GAPA assessment is formative, meaning its function is to provide you and your unit coordinator with formal documented feedback on your performance. You are expected to use that feedback to reflect on your performance, develop an action plan to address any areas of performance that are not yet at the target level for this placement, and use the remaining weeks to achieve those targets. For any behaviour that you score well on at the mid-placement assessment, it is expected that you will continue to meet that level of performance or surpass it for the rest of the placement. I recommend that you print a copy of the GAPA for your supervisor to provide them with the required paperwork. 

If minimum scores in the mid-placement GAPA are not met, you will be regarded as a 'Student at Risk'. The unit coordinator will contact you to advise you of the risk of failing this unit and provide formative feedback. You must respond to this email to show you understand the implications of this information and give details of your plans for immediate improvement. A phone call or clinical visit will follow. A review of your progress will be completed a short time after the mid placement GAPA, at any time as requested by your supervisor or unit coordinator. Unsatisfactory scores at this end placement GAPA will result in a fail grade for the unit.

The end GAPA assessment occurs during week 10, the final week of the placement. The end-of-placement GAPA assessment is summative, in that its primary use is to evaluate and document your performance relative to the stated performance targets. The minimum required scores are listed in the Assessment Criteria section below. Your final overall grade in this assessment depends on where you stand relative to those performance targets. As this placement is the second of four in the course, you should use this end-of-placement assessment as formative as well, to inform your plans for improvement in your third placement.

Occasionally student behaviour is beyond acceptable risk to clinical sites. Clinical supervisors contact CQUniversity academics immediately when this occurs. A GAPA assessment is requested at this time (which could be at any point during your placement). If the outcome of this GAPA is unsatisfactory, and/or the site feedback indicates that they can no longer host you due to the risk incurred, then this one GAPA alone, or site refusal to host, will constitute a fail grade of this unit. Where such risk exists, your placement will terminate immediately. It is difficult to place such students in the clinical environment again and your continued progress within the sonography course may be at risk.

There are 37 behaviours you are required to demonstrate during placement and are listed in the GAPA form. These required behaviours are grouped into three (3) sections:

• Section 1: Applied Knowledge has five (5) required behaviours
• Section 2: Psychomotor Skills (Scanning Skills) and Standard of Work has twelve (12) required behaviours
• Section 3: Professionalism has sixteen (16) required behaviours.

For the mid-placement GAPA, you are required to have demonstrated satisfactory performance at a Level 1 or above across all 37 behaviours outlined in the GAPA. If you have not met the requirements, you will be regarded as a 'Student at Risk'. The unit coordinator will contact you to advise you of the risk of failing this unit and provide formative feedback. You must respond to this email to show you understand the implications of this information and give details of your plans for immediate improvement.

For the end placement GAPA, you are required to have demonstrated satisfactory performance at a Level 2 or above across all 37 behaviours outlined in the GAPA. 

In order to be successful in this assessment task, you must:

• undergo both the mid-placement and end-of-placement assessments by the required date and time frame,
• meet the minimum required scores across all three sections on the end-of-placement assessment,
• ensure the documentation of each assessment is complete, and
• upload each the completed end placement GAPA form into the unit Moodle site by the due date.

Please see the attached GAPA assessment criteria for your reference.

The purpose of this assessment is to prepare you for the professionalism and documentation responsibilities you will have on clinical placement, as well as take accurate records of your attendance and exposure to different examinations. 

Clinical Placement Checklist & Induction

Your clinical supervisor/s will need to complete the ‘Clinical Placement Checklist’ to confirm they understand the assessment requirements for this unit. This document must be signed by the clinical supervisor/s within the first week of your clinical placement and submitted via unit Moodle site before Friday 18:00 AEST, week 1 of placement.

The induction will take place in week 1 of your placement block. It is compulsory that all students attend. The compulsory tutorial covers requirements for professional behaviour, clinical placement advice and information, as well as important induction and term information.

Clinical Placement Attendance and Case Log

As a health care professional, your attendance is relied upon for the provision of quality patient care. Your absence impacts service delivery and safe patient care. It is expected that you attend 100% of the time during your 10-week clinical placement to achieve the minimum 400 hours of clinical attendance. All hours worked must be entered into the Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook form. The form must be verified and signed weekly by your clinical site supervisor, radiologist, or a sonographer delegated by the clinical supervisor.

The minimum required hours for CG91 is 2000. This is a minimum not a maximum. The minimum required hours for this unit is 400 hours. For this unit, you may submit outside of clinical placement hours accumulated from after your Year 2 placement block and before the beginning of the Year 3 placement block. However, these hours can only be used towards your clinical hours in exceptional circumstances where there is an unexpected shortfall of your clinical placement hours. The number of hours submitted is at the discretion of the unit coordinator and Head of Course. Please read through the Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook Form carefully so you understand the criteria against which your clinical attendance will be evaluated. Public holidays are included as hours worked. You can log eight (8) hours worked for each public holiday. These do not need to be 'made up'. Any time you are away from your clinical institution, you MUST supply a verifiable supporting document (such as a Medical Certificate) to justify your absence. Both your clinical supervisor and the unit coordinator must be informed of any absences from your clinical placement. Any absence for part, or all of, a working day must be made up after, or during (e.g. Saturday /evenings if available), the clinical placement.

The clinical logbook serves as a record of the depth and breadth of experience you attained during the placement. It demonstrates the degree of progression of your skill development within and across examination types. You should analyse this record at regular intervals to assist in the formulation of learning goals that will support your achievement of the unit outcomes. Students' are required to maintain a weekly logbook of cases performed to ensure accurate record keeping of all case studies which was observed or participated in whilst on clinical placement.

Each case will be categorised into one of the following areas:

• Abdomen (including renal)
• Superficial Parts (thyroid, testes, lumps & bumps)
• Breast (Female or Male)
• Obstetrics (first, second or third trimester) & Gynaecology,
• Vascular (carotid, DVT or other)
• Musculoskeletal
• Extras (e.g. Paediatrics or other scan types)

The Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook form must be verified and signed weekly by your clinical site supervisor, radiologist, or a sonographer delegated by the clinical supervisor with industry-recognised qualifications. The Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook form is available via the unit Moodle site. Information on how to complete this Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook form is also available through the unit Moodle site. A copy of this form has been emailed to your clinical site however please print these forms/information sheets and read them carefully so you understand the criteria against which your logbook will be evaluated. It is the student's responsibility to ensure the Clinical Placement Attendance and Logbook form is maintained and signed off weekly.

This clinical placement checklist needs to be given to the clinical supervisor/s, completed and signed within the first week of placement. The student then needs to upload this signed checklist via the unit Moodle site before end of week 1 of placement. 

Students are required to record a minimum of thirty (30) cases across varied domains in total in an entire 10-week placement, of which twenty-five [25] must be complete studies in any one of the six domains of practice (abdomen, superficial, breast, gynaecology/ obstetrics, vascular and MSK shoulder). Each incomplete study (i.e. partially completed study) is counted as 0.5 of a complete study. Please note these are the minimum numbers only, and all examinations that you participate in or perform are to be recorded.

Assessment due dates: 

Part 1: clinical placement checklist  

The completed clinical placement checklist must be submitted by you via the unit Moodle site. 

• Block 1: Friday, 5th July 2024 6PM AEST
• Block 2: Friday, 13th September 2024 6PM AEST

Induction:

• BLOCK 1: TUESDAY 2ND JULY 2024, 730PM AEST
• BLOCK 2: TUESDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER 2024, 730PM AEST

Part 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6: clinical placement attendance and case log 

The completed clinical placement attendance and case log must be submitted by you via the unit Moodle site every two weeks (weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, & 10) of placement.  

Block 1: 

• Part 2 clinical attendance and case log: due week 2: Friday, 12th July 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 3 clinical attendance and case log: due week 4: Friday, 26th July 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 4 clinical attendance and case log: due week 6: Friday, 9th August 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 5 clinical attendance and case log: due week 8: Friday, 23rd August 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 6 clinical attendance and case log: due week 10: Friday, 6th September 2024 6PM AEST 

Block 2: 

• Part 2 clinical attendance and case log due week 2: Friday, 20th September 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 3 clinical attendance and case log due week 4: Friday, 4th October 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 4 clinical attendance and case log due week 6: Friday, 18th October 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 5 clinical attendance and case log due week 8: Friday, 1st November 2024 6PM AEST
• Part 6 clinical attendance and case log due week 10: Friday, 15th November 2024 6PM AEST

Any students whose clinical placement dates have been negotiated beyond these dates will be eligible to apply for an extension via the unit Moodle site. 

The Australian Sonographers Association (ASA) holds scientific conferences annually where sonographers are invited to present their cases in ePoster format. An ePoster can be used to provide an eye-catching visual display of a new technique, clinical insight, a case review/series or the results of original audit/research. This assessment tasks consists of three parts; you will produce and present an ePoster (in the form of a Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation) during a Zoom session, mark three peer presentations and submit a case report further expanding on your case presentation. 

Part 1 Case Presentation 

You will present a case study in the format of a 5 - 10 minute ePoster presentation. This will be a case that you have scanned during your clinical placement. The case presentation will be presented during designated zoom tutorial sessions outlined below. You will be required to self allocate to a presentation session via the unit Moodle site under the assessment tile. Your PowerPoint slides are to be submitted at least 24 hours prior to your allocated presentation session.

You can discuss any topic of a particular case that you have scanned during this presentation, as your case report will be exploring the clinical case findings for this study, it is important to choose an appropriate case for both types of assessment styles (e.g. pathology found can be used for the clinical case report, and your ePoster presentation could explore the optimisation factors you undertook to ensure diagnostic imaging of this pathology). An example of case topics are outlined below, however you are not limited to these options. Try to think of different concepts that you could present in your ePoster presentation to highlight a particular facet of the case that you have chosen. 

• Report of an interesting case
• Summary of how to optimise the image setting with the ultrasound physics explained, such as grayscale or Doppler image (except basic optimising techniques such as Depth, Focus and TGC) and demonstrate the difference in the quality of images before and after applying specific optimising techniques for a particular case.
• Explain a scanning method(s) applied to overcome the obstacle encountered in a particular case. (e.g. transducer manipulation, patient position, etc), and demonstrate the difference in the images before and after.
• Explain how you have extended a sonographic examination when required and discuss the sonographic reasoning for this for a particular case. 

Please refer to the assessment criteria to ensure that your ePoster follows the outlined requirements. 

Part 2: Peer Marking

You are required to peer mark three case presentations using the supplied marking guide. You are required to mark these case presentations from separate presentation sessions. You are not required to self allocate to these sessions for peer marking, instead you will attend three separate case presentation session and mark a student from that session. Once you have completed your peer marking you will submit all three peer marking guides via the unit Moodle site by the due date outlined below. 

Part 3: Case Report 

The Australian Sonographers Association (ASA) publishes a scientific journal ‘Sonography’ as a commitment to ensure research is undertaken to provide an evidence base that supports the development of the profession. A clinical case report is a written account of the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of an individual patient. It is a means of communicating something new that has been learnt in the clinical setting.

You will produce a clinical case report in a style that would be eligible to be published in a ‘Sonography Journal'. This clinical case report will further expand on your ePoster case presentation by clinically discussing the case findings. In this 1000-1200 word case report, you will explore five elements;

• a statement of why the case and/or concept is worth reading about.
• an account of the case and/or concept, with all relevant data and explanation
• a discussion of evidence, possible alternative explanations for the case, 
• suggestions for improvements and,
• finally a conclusion with implications.

Please refer to the assessment criteria for structure and submission requirements of your case report.

Part 1: Case Presentation

• Presentation submitted as a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
• Must include title, content and reference slides. Content can be 3 to 5 slides with maximum 5 to 8 slides in total.
• All slides to be in a ‘landscape’ format
• Font style and size (e.g. 16–24 points: should be large and clear enough to be easily read from a distance)
• Minimum resolution for graphics and images (72 dpi)
• Consider a colour scheme selection that would be easy to read from a distance (contrast of text content with background colour)
• When presenting, the PowerPoint presentation should last for approximately 5-10min
• Your PowerPoint slides are to be submitted at least 24 hours prior to your allocated presentation session.

Part 2: Peer Marking 

Peer marking guide provided. 

Part 3: Case Report 

Your case report should be separated into the following structure;

• Introduction
• Case (or Concept) Description
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

Word Count: 1000-1200 words with at least 10 supporting and relevant references in Vancouver referencing style.

Include 5 figures in your case report. Any images used for the case reports must be submitted with all identifying factors removed. Identifying factors include things such as patient name, date of birth, medical record number, referring or reporting doctor, and clinical site name.

The marking rubric will be made available via the unit Moodle site.

Assessment Due Date: 

All three parts of this assessment must be submitted by you via the unit Moodle site under the appropriate assessment submission pages. 

PART 1 CASE PRESENTATION: Due to be presented during six tutorial sessions by self allocation to either of the following dates, ePoster slides to be submitted 24 hours prior to chosen case presentation session.

Block 1: self allocation must be completed by 19th July 2024, 6PM AEST 

• Case Presentation Session 1: Tuesday 30th July 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 2: Tuesday 6th August 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 3: Tuesday 13th August 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 4: Tuesday 20th August 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 5: Tuesday 27th August 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 6: Tuesday 3rd September 2024, 730PM AEST

Block 2: self allocation must be completed by 27th September 2024, 6PM AEST

• Case Presentation Session 1: Tuesday 8th October 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 2: Tuesday 15th October 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 3: Tuesday 22nd October 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 4: Tuesday 29th October 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 5: Tuesday 5th November 2024, 730PM AEST
• Case Presentation Session 6: Tuesday 12th November 2024, 730PM AEST

PART 2 CASE PRESENTATION PEER MARKING: Due to be completed during three separate case presentation sessions by self allocation and submitted week 10 of placement, Friday 6PM AEST

• Block 1: Friday, 6th September 2024 6PM AEST 
• Block 2: Friday, 15th November 2024 6PM AEST
   

PART 3 CASE REPORT: Due week 10 of placement, Friday 6PM AEST

• Block 1: Friday, 6th September 2024 6PM AEST 
• Block 2: Friday, 15th November 2024 6PM AEST

Any students whose clinical placement dates have been negotiated beyond these dates will be eligible to apply for an extension via the unit Moodle site.