Clinical placement

Students are required to complete three Clinical Paramedic Practice units during the course, which amount to a minimum of 15 weeks (600 hours) of full-time work placement. Clinical placements are invaluable in developing professional and clinical skills and workplace literacy within the authentic clinical environment, and ensure high standards of graduate work readiness and employability.

All clinical placements are undertaken primarily with the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS). Due to state-wide demand for placement positions, students must be prepared to travel to any location within Queensland for clinical placements as a placement experience near your residence is highly unlikely. This commonly involves staying away from home for the duration of the placement, and taking leave from substantive employment and other regular responsibilities to ensure availability for full-time 24/7 rostered work. Students with extenuating circumstances restricting ability to travel and stay away from home are invited to submit requests for special consideration, but should understand that these may not be fulfilled if there are simply no available placement allocations within their home town.

The QAS has identified over 120 stations from 15 operational districts where students can undertake a clinical placement. Students seeking clinical placement outside of the Queensland Ambulance Service must understand that interstate placements are not readily available, and that certain statutory Services only accept interstate placement requests from students with pre-existing volunteer or employment relationships with those Services. For further information please contact the Unit Coordinator for clinical placements at paramedic.placements@cqu.edu.au

The three clinical placement units involve the following on-road blocks. All placements must be completed as contiguous blocks during the time period allocated to that placement unit.

        PMSC12002 – Clinical Paramedic Practice 1 (2nd year, Term Two) 5 weeks;

        PMSC13002 – Clinical Paramedic Practice 2 (3rd year, Term One) 5 weeks; and

        PMSC130004 – Clinical Paramedic Practice 3 (3rd year, Term Two) 5 weeks

There is no capacity for students to request split blocks, custom dates, or to attend placement on specific days. Calendar dates for these blocks may change from year to year depending upon state-wide allocation availability, and are determined at the end of Term Two for the following year. The dates are announced to all students at that time in an information sheet, and can thereafter be found on the Sonia Home Page (clinical placement management software) and the CG95 Portal (on Moodle).

The structure of all placement experiences is that you average 40 hours per week of placement and you are placed at a 24-hour station where you will be supervised to participate in clinical activity up to the level of training which the academic unit aligns with.

Mandatory requirements for clinical placement

Students will be required to purchase the approved Paramedic Clinical Placement uniform for wear during lab sessions, residential schools, and clinical placement. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) will also need to be purchased from the CQUniversity Bookshop as a Workplace Health and Safety requirement by Ambulance Services when on clinical placement. Non-adherence to uniform and PPE requirements will result in immediate removal from clinical placement.

All statutory Ambulance Services mandate that students meet certain vaccination and health standards prior to attendance as well as CQUni also identifying certain requirements to ensure student safety and readiness for practice. Information on all of these requirements and associated due dates is updated yearly and shared on the Sonia Home Page and the CG95 Portal; please also see the link below for QAS Clinical Placements website.

https://www.ambulance.qld.gov.au/clinicalplacements.html

Students must submit all QAS Mandatories and CQU requirements to the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) team by the due dates stipulated through Sonia and thw WIL team. All requirements are non-negotiable, so it is imperative that students review and begin working to meet these requirements early.

1.             Immunisation and infection control

Full details are provided within the information sheet on Sonia Home Page. Take these requirements to your GP and ask for your immunisation record for all vaccines if available.

    a)            Hepatitis B: The full age-appropriate vaccination schedule takes 7 months to complete (as a minimum), and that the QAS and other Services do not accept the accelerated version of vaccine.

    b)            Varicella (chickenpox)

    c)             Diptheria/Tetanus/Pertussis (Adult)

    d)            Measles, Mumps Rubella

    e)            Influenza (annual commercially available dose)

    f)             Covid-19 vaccination (minimum 3 doses)

The following additional vaccinations are highly recommended by QAS, but are not mandatory:

    g)            Tuberculosis (TB) screening: Mantoux test or QuantiFERON Gold test

2. QAS Medical Assessment: This assessment must be undertaken by KINNECT who are the contracted assessors for all medical assessments for the QAS. Students are assessed against the same medical standards as graduates to ensure that you meet the inherent requirements for employment

3. Queensland Government issued Working With Children Check (Blue Card): Students are required to have a valid Blue Card linked to CQUniversity for the entirety their placements with the QAS . Students approved for interstate placement must acquire the analogous screening for that State. http://www.bluecard.qld.gov.au/applications/need-to-apply-for-card.html

4. National Criminal History Check (NCHC). Any student with a disclosable outcome on their NCHC must discuss the matter with the Course Coordinator at hoc-ug-paramedic-science@cqu.edu.au upon course enrolment or upon conviction being recorded (whichever is earlier)

5. QAS Annual Clinical Placement Orientation Checklist: The QAS require this checklist to be completed prior to each and every clinical placement unit.

6. Annual Quantitative mask fit testing

7. Current approved First Aid Certificate and CPR certification: CQUniversity requires Paramedic Students to attain a first-aid certificate from a registered training provider within the first term in the first year of enrolment, and to maintain certification validity at the first day of placement for PMSC12002 in 2nd year. Note that first aid certificates expire every three years, whilst CPR certifications require annual renewal.