PMSC13011 - Trauma and Emergency Management

General Information

Unit Synopsis

Traumatic injuries form a significant treatment burden on Australia’s health care system and are a major cause of death and disability across all demographics. Within this unit, you will develop an understanding of traditional and emerging approaches to treating those suffering traumatic injuries within a prehospital specific context. The number of natural and man-made disasters has risen dramatically over the last decade. Natural disasters, industrial accidents, terrorist attacks and pandemics represent major incidents, often involving multiple casualties; therefore a component of this unit will include emergency management. Upon successful completion, you will have a comprehensive understanding of trauma management, multiple casualty scene management and emergency management within a prehospital context.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 12
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.25
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Pre-requisites

PMSC12001 - Procedures and Skills in Paramedic Care

PMSC12002 - Clinical Paramedic Practice 1

PMSC13012 - Paramedic Medical Emergencies 3

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 - 2024

There are no availabilities for this unit on or after Term 3 - 2024

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 12-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 25 hours of study per week, making a total of 300 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 50%
2. Online Test 50%
3. On-campus Activity 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 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 97.37% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 27.54% 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: SUTE Unit comments
Feedback
Lectures produced for past offerings by a previous Unit Coordinator were reused for some weeks. Students report perceiving these as in need of updating, and did not like that these felt different in style and flow from the rest of the unit.
Recommendation
Content for all weeks requires updating for 2023 and new lectures shall be produced by the next Unit Coordinator.
Action Taken
All content was remade and new lectures were produced by the UC.
Source: SUTE Unit comments; direct student feedback
Feedback
Poor organisation of residential schools negatively impacted the learning experience and student performance.
Recommendation
A comprehensive residential school guide with clear plans for each session was produced for these offerings weeks in advance, with versions provided for both staff and students. It is possible that students are conflating the staffing issues with overall organisation of the residential school schedules.
Action Taken
Residential school guide was distributed to all students early to allow for student preparation. Staffing was adequate across all campuses. A daily video was made for all casual academics to watch outlining the key learning and teaching points for the day.
Source: Staff reflection
Feedback
Low feedback response rate
Recommendation
The response rates remain low for this unit, negatively impacting validity of findings and limiting usefulness. One possible reason why is that this is a final term, final year unit, and many students are looking ahead to their futures and consider interaction with University systems in their past. Another reason may be that many students withhold providing feedback until after their residential school marks are back, but for the majority of students this occurs after the feedback submission period is closed. For the next offering a presentation produced by the Unit Coordinator that explains the importance and utility of student feedback may help encourage greater participation and engagement with the feedback process. The presentations should also note that even if the student will be undertaking their residential school once the feedback submission period is closed, they should still give feedback on their experiences thus far of their learning and assessment experiences.
Action Taken
Video created encouraging students to provide feedback. There was a large uptick in moodle engagement in week 12 prior to the residential school when the video was posted.
Source: SUTE Unit comments; staff reflection; direct student feedback
Feedback
Residential schools were insufficiently staffed to provide an optimal student:staff ratio
Recommendation
Emergency leave for a Unit Coordinator plus difficulty recruiting sufficient sessional staff for some offering and locations did impact tuition and student:staff ratios. Caps for residential schools shall be more rigorously implemented for future terms, as student self-selection meant that some venues received many times as many students as others despite low staffing availability. Residential block C is also heavily preferenced, and in future shall be held in reserve to ensure more even student distribution across earlier blocks with greater staffing numbers.
Action Taken
Staffing was adequate with a usual ratio of 1:6 at all campuses except Cairns where several days had a ratio of 1:10.
Source: UC Reflection. Student feedback.
Feedback
Students requested greater depth in the pathophysiology of traumatic presentations.
Recommendation
Add content to lectures to cover the pathophysiology of traumatic conditions in more depth.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: SUTE Unit Comments
Feedback
Students would have liked to have some practice simulations provided prior to attendance at residential school.
Recommendation
UC to provide videos of OSCE style sims to demonstrate the changes to approach in trauma cases
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

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

  1. Using a systematic approach, assess emergency environments for mechanisms of injury and predicted pattern of injuries
  2. Develop, evaluate and apply evidence based clinical management to the assessment, diagnosis and management of patients with traumatic conditions in the prehospital environment
  3. Compare and contrast the management of emergencies via air and ground transportation
  4. Apply the principles of emergency management to multi-casualty scenes in the prehospital context
  5. Identify emerging technology and procedures utilised within the prehospital setting for trauma related emergencies.

This proposed unit aligns to the graduate paramedic competency standards as defined by the professional organisation representing paramedics, Paramedics Australasia and the national body providing accreditation standards for competent paramedic practice and educational design, Council of Ambulance Authorities. Reference document can be found at:

http://www.caa.net.au/images/documents/accreditation_resources/Paramedic_Professional_Competency_Standards_V2.2_February_2013_PEPAS.pdf

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Written Assessment • • •
2 - Online Test • •
3 - On-campus Activity • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
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