Unit Synopsis
This unit advances your study of obstetric ultrasound from MEDS13001 to explore the sonographic assessment of normal and pathological third trimester obstetric cases. You will study the sonographic appearance, scanning techniques, management and pathological complications associated with third trimester scans as well as become familiar with investigations and interventions relevant to the management of post partum patients and prenatal anomalies of the fetus. You will also investigate sonographic studies relating to a paediatric patient. Common paediatric anomalies as well as inherent congenital diseases will be reviewed to include their sonographic appearance, safe scanning techniques, prognosis and treatment. Clinical scenarios/case studies are used to engage you in the sonographic decision-making process for both the third trimester scan and the paediatric patient.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 3 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisite: MEDS13001 Obstetric and Breast Ultrasound and MEDS12007 Medical Sonography Clinical Unit 1 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 | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
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).
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. Presentation and Written Assessment | 40% |
| 2. Online Test | 60% |
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 92.86% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 15.73% 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: Unit co-ordinator reflection
Students included a lot of information in tabular form rather than as a discussion of information in the written assessment to override word limits.
Consider increasing the word limit for the written assessment to allow students to discuss information with more depth and analysis.
Word limit was increased from 1500 words in the written assessment to 2000 words.
Source: SUTE data
The final assessment for this unit has a weighting of 60% of the unit total. Students felt placing such a large percentage of the unit total on one assessment caused increased pressure on them whilst concurrently on clinical placement.
Consider a restructure of assessments to reduce weighting of final test.
The final assessment (assessment 2), was restructured into part A and part B. The combined total was worth 60%. Part A was completed in week 7 and part B in week 12.
Source: SUTE data
Students suggested the lectures on the paediatric head had too much information and needed to be condensed as the topic is difficult to follow.
Review the paediatric head lectures and breaking them down into smaller lectures.
In Progress
Source: SUTE data and UC reflection
Students found it difficult to manage the tuorial time due to it immediately preceeding another unit's tutorial.
Revise tutorial timetabling in conjunction with the other unit co-ordinator to reduce conflicts.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Describe safe ultrasound assessment of the fetus in late pregnancy, maternal post partum pelvis and the paediatric patient
- Differentiate the aetiology, ultrasound appearance and Doppler haemodynamics of abnormalities in third trimester pregnancies and post partum patients
- Analyse normal and abnormal paediatric ultrasound findings with reference to anatomy, clinical presentation, sonographic appearance, and aetiology
- Critically evaluate and analyse clinical scenarios to communicate a differential diagnosis which includes ethical and management considerations.
The learning outcomes for this unit relate to the requirements of general sonography courses under the Australasian Sonography Accreditation Registry (ASAR), Standards for the Accreditation of Sonographer Courses (SASC):
Foundation Units of Competence 1-5
Critical Practice Units of Competence 10
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Presentation and Written Assessment | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Online Test | • | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | |||
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | |
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | |||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |