PMSC11004 - Paramedic Medical Emergencies 1

General Information

Unit Synopsis

In this unit, you will develop the skills to recognise, diagnose and manage patients with commonly encountered acute and life-threatening disease processes, throughout their life span. You will integrate your developing knowledge of anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology with patient assessment, diagnostic evaluations and clinical history taking to formulate a provisional diagnosis. You will use this information to design and implement the most appropriate clinical management in line with contemporary professional guidelines and protocols, and emerging evidence-based practices. You will also build and apply appropriate communication styles, including verbal, non-verbal and written, to communicate with patients and other professionals to convey information. Case-based learning combined with simulation will contextualise your essential clinical skills, clinical decision making and problem-solving abilities. You will also begin to explore the legal, ethical and professional responsibilities required to practice as a paramedic.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 1
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Pre-requisite – BMSC11010 Human Anatomy and Physiology 1 or BMSC11001 Human Body Systems 1

Pre-requisite – PMSC11002 Foundations of Paramedic Clinical Practice

Co-requisite - PMSC12001 Procedures & Skills in Paramedic Care

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School Compulsory Residential School
View Unit Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2022

Term 2 - 2023 Profile
Cairns
Mixed Mode
Rockhampton
Townsville

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Case Study 50%
2. Online Quiz(zes) 50%
3. Practical Assessment 0%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2021 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 4 (on a 5 point Likert scale), based on a 30.05% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student feedback via Moodle
Feedback
Students enjoyed content delivered by lecturers who had real-life paramedic experience and provided a variety of learning modes.”
Recommendation
The recommendation is to continue to include real-life experience during lectures.
Action Taken
Real-life experiences were included not only in lectures but also the weekly tutorial sessions.
Source: Student and staff verbal feedback
Feedback
Students found the Residential School to be more demanding than expected and requested more time to practice scenarios.
Recommendation
Some of the course content has been scaffolded across other paramedic courses to alleviate overwhelming students in the first year.
Action Taken
The course content was reduced this year and spread across the latter PME units.
Source: Central Queensland University and Queensland Ambulance Service academic staff feedback
Feedback
Students enjoyed the introductory level content and assessment
Recommendation
Content and assessment will continue to be aimed at the introductory level
Action Taken
Course content was entirely produced anew this year, and set clearly at introductory level.
Source: Student comments
Feedback
The students stated the assessment tasks were enjoyable and beneficial to their learning.
Recommendation
Slight changes will be made to the assessments to enhance the student experience further.
Action Taken
Similar assessment tasks were provided this year, along with clear instructional videos, tutorials, and practice quizzes every week.
Source: Moodle
Feedback
Moodle layout was excellent and easy to navigate.
Recommendation
The unit used the new Tiles layout this term, and within each tile all material was placed beneath clear headings. Lecture recordings and files were placed within a folder for easy download and to avoid cluttering each tile. The unit should continue using this approach in future offerings.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Moodle
Feedback
The inclusion of Ambulance Victoria protocols was confusing, given that the rest of the course teaches only to Queensland Ambulance Service guidelines.
Recommendation
The inclusion of Ambulance Victoria content to show how they risk-manage the decision to transport or leave patients at home was explained to students, but still resulted in confusion. The team has since determined to remove reference to interstate protocols in future offerings.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Moodle
Feedback
The weekly practical lab sessions are excellent, and the Tutors & Lecturers at each campus location were supportive and informative.
Recommendation
Recommend to maintain the one-to-six teacher-student ratio for weekly lab sessions and residential schools. This enables great interaction between teacher and all students, and prevents any one student being lost within a larger or louder group, or not getting enough hands-on practice.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Moodle
Feedback
Most lectures were excellent, with great detail and presentation style and very interesting to follow. Some however did not go into enough depth overall, or the slides were cluttered whilst the narration was brief.
Recommendation
Ensure consistency in lecture quality across multiple Unit Coordinators.
Action Taken
Nil.
Unit learning Outcomes

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

  1. Evaluate patients systematically and comprehensively, including clinical history and assessment data, in a safe, ethical and culturally appropriate manner
  2. Formulate a provisional diagnosis by applying knowledge of underpinning foundational anatomy and pathophysiology of disease processes and patient assessment data
  3. Propose and demonstrate appropriate clinical management, including the use of basic pharmacology, through comprehensive knowledge and demonstration of best-practice clinical interventions with consideration to safe and ethical practice
  4. Analyse and apply the principles of safe, ethical and professional practice with reference to legislative and regulatory requirements and the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.

It is now a requirement of the Paramedicine Board of Australia that units align with the AHPRA Professional Capabilities for Registered Paramedics. These are broken down into five (5) domains. Below aligns the proposed learning outcomes with these domains, with each domain also listed below:

  • Learning outcome 1 aligns with professional capabilities for registered paramedics Domain 1, 3 & 5
  • Learning outcome 2 aligns with professional capabilities for registered paramedics Domain 3 & 5
  • Learning outcome 3 aligns with professional capabilities for registered paramedics Domain 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
  • Learning outcome 4 aligns with professional capabilities for registered paramedics Domain 1, 2, 4 & 5

Domain 1 - Professional and ethical conduct:

  • Practice ethically and professionally, consistent with relevant legislation and regulatory requirements
  • Provide each patient with an appropriate level of dignity and care
  • Assume responsibility, and accept accountability, for professional decisions
  • Advocate on behalf of the patient, when appropriate within the context of the practitioner's practice as a paramedic

Domain 2 - Professional communication and collaboration:

  • Communicate clearly, sensitively and effectively with the patient and other relevant people
  • Collaborate with other health practitioners

Domain 3 - Evidence-based practice and professional learning:

  • Make informed and reasonable decisions
  • Use clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills to determine clinical judgements and appropriate actions
  • Draw on appropriate knowledge and skills in order to make professional judgements
  • identify ongoing professional learning, developmental needs and opportunities

Domain 4 - Safety, risk management and quality assurance:

  • Protect and enhance patient safety
  • Maintain safety of self and others in the work environment
  • Operate effectively in an emergency care environment
  • Maintain records appropriately
  • Monitor and review the ongoing effectiveness of their practice and modify it accordingly
  • Audits, reflects on and reviews practice
  • Participate in the mentoring, teaching and development of others

Domain 5 - Paramedicine practice:

  • Use patient information management systems appropriately
  • Assess and monitor the patient capacity to receive care
  • understand the key concepts of the bodies of knowledge which are specifically relevant to paramedicine practice
  • Conduct appropriate diagnostic or monitoring procedures, treatment, therapy or other actions safely
  • Demonstrate the requisite knowledge and skills to participate in mass casualty or major incident situations
  • Formulate specific and appropriate patient care and treatment actions

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Case Study • • • •
2 - Online Quiz(zes) • •
3 - Practical Assessment • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Communication • • •
2 - Problem Solving • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • •
5 - Team Work • •
6 - Information Technology Competence • • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • •
8 - Ethical practice • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10