You will complete an internal clinical placement at the relevant CQUniversity health clinic. The internal clinical placement is one and a half days each week for 12 weeks. You will provide podiatric care to a diverse range of patients. Internal Clinical Placement (144 hours / one and a half days per week for 12 weeks) will be every Tuesday from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and Wednesday from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm over the 12 week term. 

You will also complete an external clinical placement. The target dates for External Clinical Placement are the 28th of October to the 15th of November 2019 inclusive (120 hours / 3 weeks). This placement will most likely occur after the exam period. Details of individual placement locations and dates will be provided to you during the term. External clinical placement may be located either in a metropolitan area or in a rural or remote area. Please note that you may need to travel at your own expense for your external placement. Please note that external placement dates and location are dependent on the site's availability therefore placement dates may vary slightly for each student. It is our intention to secure external placements for all students across this three-week block at the end of term.

You must show evidence that you have met all the pre-clinical placement requirements (available on the Moodle site) prior to commencing placement; failure to provide the required documentation will mean that you will be unable to attend any placement until the missing documentation has been supplied. You will be required to make up all missed placement days. You are required to wear the approved CQUniversity podiatry clinical uniform and to project a professional image at all times. If you are deemed to be unprofessional or if your behaviour is inappropriate, you will be dismissed from clinic and receive one written warning. You will be marked as absent and you will be required to make-up the clinic session.  If the identified behaviour is repeated, it will be deemed as professional misconduct and you will be managed in accordance to the Student Behavioural Misconduct Procedure. Please review the policy available on the Moodle site.

Internal Placement: Clinical Placement  Handbook 

The internal clinical placement is pass/fail and each student's grade is assessed using the Clinical Placement Handbook (available on the Moodle site). To PASS internal clinical placement you must complete all competencies / assessments listed in part A and part B. You must pass both part A and part B to pass the assessment overall. In part A, there are 31 manual skills, you must be assessed as 'competent' in all 31 tasks in order to pass part A of your clinical handbook. In part B, there are 14 assessment tasks, you must be assessed as 'competent' in all 14 in order to pass part B of your clinical handbook. Failure to meet all the competency tasks will result in the following: 

You will be required to attend make-up sessions (organised in vacation/ review time) in order to address the missing competencies (there will be no rescheduling of these make-up sessions). 

If you fail to attend these sessions OR fail to achieve the necessary competencies then:

You will be assessed as "Not competent" and will fail this assessment task. Failure of this assessment task will result in a Fail grade for this unit. 

Clinical placement is compulsory requiring 100% attendance rate. 

External Placement: The Learning Contract must be submitted 2 weeks (10 working days) prior to the allocated placement commencement. The student must submit this to the Unit Coordinator for review and sign-off at least two weeks prior to placement commencement. 

The following documentation must be completed and submitted within 1 week after the placement has been completed: Learning Contract, Log Book Reflections, Time Sheet, Clinical Supervisor Report, and Student Evaluation of the Clinical Placement. 

Timely submission of ALL above documents are mandatory. Any documents missing or incomplete will result in the student being awarded a "Fail" grade for this task. 

External placement has a pass/fail requirement. External supervisors and other relevant academic staff will assess whether students have satisfactorily met the Podiatry Competency Standards for Australia and New Zealand (2015) during their external placement. External clinical placement is compulsory requiring 100% attendance rate. You are required to wear the approved CQUniversity podiatry clinical uniform and to project a professional image at all times. 

Note: Students who miss clinical placement should review the  Clinical Placement Handbook and the Work-Integrated Learning/Student Placement Policy and Procedure.

Important information regarding clinical placement: 

• Students who are absent from clinical placement must themselves notify the External Clinical Supervisor, the Unit Coordinator, the Clinical Placement Coordinator and the Health Clinic Administration staff before 8:00 am on the allocated clinical learning experience for that day. Students are expected to arrive at the clinic before 8:00 am. Students who do not contact the above-mentioned personnel and who are more than 10 minutes late, will be dismissed from clinic and will be required to make up the day. 

• Students are to provide the Unit Coordinator with a medical certificate within five working days after the absence. Any medical certificate supplied after the 5 working days will not be considered and you will be marked absent for that day. 

• Absences will need to be made up one for one. A maximum of 5 days, during review and vacation weeks, can be made up for internal clinical placement that is missed. Failure to make up missed clinical placement days will result in a "Fail" grade for this assessment task, and a subsequent "Fail" grade for this unit. If you are absent for more than 5 days, with valid supporting medical documents, your case will be forwarded to the Head of Course and the Deputy Dean of Learning and Teaching for consideration. For external clinical days which are missed, the following applies: 

1-2 days – You are encouraged to negotiate make-up times with placement supervisor. 

3- 5 days– You will need to negotiate make up times with the placement supervisor and the academic clinical supervisor. 

>6 days –You are required to undertake another complete placement. 

Please note that your grade will remain as 'PO - Practicum Outstanding' until the placement days are fulfilled. 

• The student should be aware that the allocation of clinical placement takes precedence over any personal commitments.

• Students who do not notify the relevant people (External Clinical Supervisor, Unit Coordinator & Clinical Placement Coordinator) regarding their absences and who do not attend an allocated placement will receive a "Fail" grade for this assessment task.

The OSCE will include written, verbal and practical components. The OSCE will last for up to 70 minutes. The OSCE will assess your clinical knowledge, practical and assessment skills and clinical reasoning. Based on written clinical scenarios you will be required to discuss (either verbally and/or written) and/or perform aspects of relevant history taking, diagnosis, assessment, treatment and overall management of the condition and/or clinical scenario presented and complete relevant patient documentation. All assessments may be video and/or audio-recorded for moderation purposes. You are expected to arrive at least 15 minutes before the allocated start time for the OSCE and to wear full clinical uniform with enclosed shoes. The OSCE is closed book.

Students will be assessed on their clinical knowledge and skills in line with the Podiatry Competency Standards developed by the Australian & New Zealand Podiatry Accreditation Council (2015).

This assessment task is worth 50% of your overall grade. Each component of the assessment task will be weighted as such:

35% written task,

10% presentation,

5% supervisor mark,

In-text citations are counted as part of the word count for assessment purposes. Penalties will be applied where those strict word limits are exceeded (greater than 10% of 2,000 word limit). The presentation must be referenced using the identified referencing system and must not exceed the time allocation (greater than 10 minutes). Please note there is no 10% allowance for this presentation. If you are late submitting your assessment, penalties will be applied according to the CQUniversity Assessment Policy and Procedures (Higher Education Coursework). If the content exceeds 10% of the 2,000 word limit then any additional content that is over the word limit will not be assessed by the examiner (this excludes tables, appendices and the reference list where applicable). If the presentation exceeds the 10 minute time limit, then any additional content that is over the time limit will not be assessed by the examiner.

Any demonstrated plagiarism by an individual student  will be managed in the following manner:

The individual student will be managed according to the CQUniversity Academic Misconduct Procedure policy.

The activities covered in this unit cover professional podiatry skills, which are inherent requirements to meet the professional standards and are integral to your achievement of learning outcomes and assessment in this unit. 

You will be required to complete a total of six competency tasks over the 12 week period. Each student will be required to create a 4-minute presentation on a patient they have seen during clinic or make-up a patient (can include patients seen in third year term 1 and second year term 2). Using the SOAP/E format students will each present their patient. If you are presenting on a patient from the clinic then you must ensure that you have de-identified the patient. 

The competency tasks will be on the following topics: 

• Biomechanics/sports 
• Neurology
• Vascular 
• Dermatology
• Footwear 
• infection control / clinical requirements 

During each tutorial session you will be given some time to design your presentation for the following week. 

To satisfactorily PASS this unit you need to pass all six competency assessment tasks. Failure to pass all six competency tasks may result in a "Fail" grade. The competency tasks will be available on the Moodle site along with the marking rubric.