Unit Synopsis
In this unit, you will continue to develop your skills in recognising, diagnosing and managing patients presenting with complex and/or less commonly encountered acute and life-threatening disease processes, throughout the life span. You will integrate your developing knowledge of anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology with patient assessment, diagnostic evaluations and clinical history to formulate a provisional diagnosis. You will use this information to design and implement the most appropriate clinical management in line with contemporary industry guidelines and protocols, and emerging evidence-based practices, displaying safe, ethical and professional practice. Case-based learning combined with high fidelity simulation will contextualise your essential clinical skills, clinical decision making and problem-solving abilities.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 2 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisites- PMSC12001 Procedures & Skills in Paramedic Care PMSC11004 Paramedic Medical Emergencies 1 Co-requisite- PMSC12004 Advanced Electrophysiology and Coronary 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 1 - 2026
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 | 60% |
| 2. Practical Assessment | 0% |
| 3. Case Study | 40% |
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 57.89% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 15.2% 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
The lectures are difficult to follow, outdated, and presented by inconsistent lecturers.
PMSC12005 content will be reviewed and updated for the 2025 offering, delivered by a consistent lecturer.
The first five weeks of learning material were updated for the 2025 offering of PMSC12005. Qualitative feedback reflects positive student satisfaction for this new learning material. The older learning material remains problematic and was not updated due to discipline accreditation and workload requirements. This offering was the final offering of PMSC12005, and all learning material will be recreated for the new units within the undergraduate paramedicine curriculum.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments
Provide more specificity and associated learning resources for the presentation assessment item.
The presentation assessment item will be reviewed to provide greater specificity and expectations, with greater alignment to unit learning outcomes. Supportive learning resources will be provided to assist with the creation of this assessment item.
The presentation assessment and rubric were redesigned for the 2025 offering of PMSC12005 for greater specificity and clarity. Learning resources, example assessments and a video tutorial were also provided to support students in completing this assessment item.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments
Provide video demonstrations of clinical simulations to assist with prerequisite learning for residential school.
First-person recordings of clinical simulations will be incorporated within the learning content to assist with prerequisite residential school learnings.
Point-of-view recordings of clinical simulations were provided to students for this offering of PMSC12005. Students expressed that these videos were highly beneficial for their learning and would like these implemented within other units of the curriculum.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments
The clinical case review Zoom sessions were enjoyable and supported learning.
Continue weekly Zoom tutorials incorporating case-based learning and the weekly formative assessments.
Weekly virtual tutorials were completed throughout the first nine weeks of term, until the commencement of residential schools. Problem and case-based learning occurred during these tutorials.
Source: SUTE Comments
Update the learning material for future offerings.
This was the final offering of PMSC12005. The learning material for this unit has been scaffolded across new units within the third year of the undergraduate paramedicine curriculum. The learning material will be recreated within these new units.
In Progress
Source: SUTE Comments and Verbal Feedback
The example clinical simulation videos were useful.
The point-of-view clinical simulations were implemented for this offering of PMSC12005. Students have expressed that these videos were very helpful for their learning and would like these continued and integrated within more units of the paramedicine curriculum.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Evaluate patients systematically and comprehensively, including clinical history and assessment data, in a safe, ethical and culturally appropriate manner
- Formulate and justify a provisional diagnosis by applying knowledge of underpinning foundational pathophysiology of complex and/or less commonly encountered acute and life-threatening disease processes, and implement appropriate pharmacological management
- Develop effective clinical management interventions through comprehensive knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practice, incorporating the principles of safe, professional and ethical practice.
It is 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 learning outcomes with these domains. In addition, the learning outcomes have also been aligned with the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards.
Professional Capabilities for a registered Paramedic
The Paramedicine Board of Australia is responsible for assessing, consulting on and setting the standards for paramedics practicing in Australia. These standards and relevant domains are articulated in the Professional capabilities for registered paramedics document. The learning outcomes of the unit are matched to the relevant capabilities
| Standard/Attribute/Criteria | Learning Outcome |
| Domain 1: The professional and ethical practitioner 1.1.4, 1.1.5, 1.1.6, 1.1.7, 1.1.8, 1.1.9, 1.1.10, 1.1.11, 1.2.1, 1.2,2, 1.2.3, 1.2.4, 1.2.5, 1.2.6, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.3, 1.4.1, 1.4.2 | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Domain 2: The communicator and collaborator 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.1.7, 2.1.8, 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3 | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Domain 3: The evidence-based practitioner 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.3, 3.2.4, 3.2.5, 3.2.6, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3 | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Domain 4: The safety and risk management practitioner 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4, 4.1.5, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3, 4.5.2, 4.7.7 | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Domain 5: The paramedicine practitioner 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4, 5.1.5, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3, 5.2.4, 5.2.5, 5.3.1, 5.3.2, 5.3.3, 5.3.4, 5.3.5, 5.3.6, 5.4.1, 5.4.2, 5.4.3, 5.4.4, 5.4.5, 5.4.6, 5.6.1, 5.6.2, 5.6.3, 5.6.4 | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care Standards developed in this unit are:
| Standard | Learning Outcomes |
| Clinical Governance | LO1, LO3 |
| Partnering with Consumers | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Preventing and Controlling Infections | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Medication Safety | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Comprehensive Care | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Communicating for Safety | LO1, LO3 |
| Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Presentation | • | • | • |
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • |
| 3 - Case Study | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 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 | |