Unit Synopsis
Within this unit, you will review the issues of substance abuse in Australia, considering at-risk patient groups, relevant sociocultural determinants of health, and the role of primary health services in treatment and rehabilitation. You will evaluate patient presentations, applying pathophysiological knowledge and critical thinking to differentiate between and diagnose complex multi-system presentations. This unit will assist you in building your clinical judgement and decision-making skills to develop and rationalise management plans for toxicological and toxinological cases, including chemical, biological, and radiological incidents, and environmental emergencies. In doing so, you will appraise and synthesise peer-reviewed literature reporting evidence-based management of toxicological, toxinological, environmental, chemical, biological and radiological cases and formulate recommendations for practice.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisites:
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 2 - 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. Written Assessment | 25% |
| 2. Research Assignment | 35% |
| 3. Online Test | 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.
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: Synthesis of SUTE data, in-person conversations, and email & phone conversations; personal reflection.
Replacement of practical assessment at the end of term with a theory assessment during term has increased overall workload. The predominately-written nature of these tasks, combined with students' high workload and poor engagement, contributes to student likelihood to resort to generative AI for assessment tasks.
Review the assessment types and structure in light of high student workload, poor engagement, and the prevalence of student reliance upon generative AI. Consider greater diversification of tasks whilst ensuring purposeful and authentically relevant activities.
Assessment two was significantly redesigned to focus upon paramedic critical thinking skills around clinical inflection points. This worked very well and students reported that they found the flexibility to explore their choice of topic, alongside the focus upon difficult clinical decisions, to be rewarding and interesting. The contextual nature of clinical inflection points made this task very difficult for AI to perform well, resulting in stratification of grades between those genuinely engaged with the task and those that did not.
Source: SUTE data; personal reflection.
Good feedback is again received for lecture quality, the provision of audio-only versions for convenient learning, and for teacher support within the online systems and via personal consultations. There is room for improvement and for introduction of additional means of content delivery, and this can be considered for 2026 with ongoing content refresh.
When refreshing content for 2026, explore and implement learning design options for engagement, diverse learners, and overall quality.
Content was refreshed and updated for many topics this term. Complete refresh was not undertaken due to this being the final offering of this unit, and time instead was focused upon providing more drop-in Zoom sessions, and a large increase in one-on-one support sessions to discuss content and assessment completion.
Source: Unit Coordinator observation and reflection.
AI vulnerability in assessment tasks is a significant issue for both written tasks and online tests.
The successor unit to this one already has assessment task types determined. Instead of just creating tasks according to these given assessment types, these should be reviewed and restructured or replaced entirely to ensure tasks with low AI vulnerability that are feasible to effect within online learning environment. Whilst this may require a Unit Update Proposal, it is justified in the current highly dynamic setting of rapid AI improvements and heavy student reliance.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Review the issues of substance abuse in Australia, considering at-risk patient groups, relevant sociocultural determinants of health, and the role of primary health services in treatment and rehabilitation
- Evaluate patient presentations, applying pathophysiological knowledge and critical thinking to differentiate between and diagnose complex multi-system presentations
- Build clinical judgement and decision-making skills to develop and rationalise management plans for toxicological, toxinological, environmental, chemical, biological and radiological cases
- Synthesise the peer-reviewed literature around the evidence-based management of toxicological, toxinological, environmental, chemical, biological and radiological cases and formulate recommendations for practice.
The Paramedicine Board of Australia requires that units align with the Professional Capabilities for Registered Paramedics, which consist of five (5) domains. The below section aligns the proposed learning outcomes with these domains. In addition, the learning outcomes have been aligned with the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards.
Professional Capabilities for Registered Paramedics
| Standard/Attribute/Criteria | Learning Outcome |
| Domain 1: The professional and ethical practitioner 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.1.8, 1.1.9, 1.1.10, 1.1.11, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.5, 1.2.5, 1.3.1, 1.3.3, 1.4.1, 1.4.2 | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4 |
| Domain 2: The communicator and collaborator 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.1.7, 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.5, 2.2.6 | LO3, LO4 |
| 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, 3.3.4 | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4 |
| Domain 4: The safety and risk management practitioner 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4, 4.1.5, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3 | LO3, LO4 |
| Domain 5: The paramedicine practitioner 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.4, 5.2.5, 5.3.1, 5.3.4, 5.3.6, 5.4.1, 5.4.2, 5.4.3, 5.4.4, 5.4.5, 5.4.6 | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4 |
National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards
| Standard | Learning Outcomes |
| Clinical Governance | LO3, LO4 |
| Partnering with Consumers | LO1, LO3, LO4 |
| Preventing and Controlling Infections | LO3, LO4 |
| Medication Safety | LO3, LO4 |
| Comprehensive Care | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4 |
| Communicating for Safety | LO1, LO3, LO4 |
| Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration | LO2, LO3, LO4 |
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | |||
| 2 - Research Assignment | • | • | ||
| 3 - 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 | • | • | • | |
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |