Postgraduate Medicine

Compliance with Australian Law and professional regulations.

Knowledge, understanding, and compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements are necessary pre-requisites to clinical/professional placements in order to identify, manage and reduce the risk of harm to self and others; compliance with these professional regulations and the Australian Law ensures students are both responsible and accountable for their practice.

• Respond to the requirements for registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA);
• Comply with relevant child protection safety, health and safety and anti-discrimination legislation.

Ethical and professional behaviour in academic and clinical/professional environments.

Compliance with standards, codes, guidelines and policies that facilitates safe, competent interactions and relationships for students and the people they engage with in the many environments of practice is required for the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of all.

• Comply with academic and non-academic conduct codes and policies and professional standards;
• Identify and enact relevant applications of these codes and standards, including those relating to plagiarism, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, and equitable and respectful behaviour in academic and clinical settings.

Compliance with safe practice sufficient to meet patient care needs, including considerations of current scope of practice, workplace health and safety and infection control.

Compliance with current scope of practice, workplace health and safety, infection control considerations and effective and timely response to alarm systems are required to provide safe environments for students, staff and others.

• Limit task performance to current scope of practice;
• Comply with relevant workplace health & safety policies for equipment use and storage;
• Remain up to date with first-aid and CPR knowledge and practice;
• Work safely with clients with infectious diseases and with reduced immunity;
• Be able to identify and respond to alarm systems to maintain safety and/or effective health management for self and patients.

Knowledge acquisition, utilisation and retention spanning and drawing together all coursework subjects. Cognitive skills for focus, memory, attention to detail, theoretical deliberation, and practical functioning sufficient to meet patient care needs.

Understanding and retention of coursework information and the effective processing of this information is required for appropriate, safe and effective delivery of care.

• Make safe and appropriate patient care decisions from retained knowledge;
• Assess the application of policy and procedures in the context of clinical situations;
• Research and use an evidence based framework to make sound decisions between clinical management options;
• Notice and respond effectively to critical changes in instructions, measurements or observable behaviour, e.g. assess appropriate course of action when patient’s temperature is elevated.

Awareness of own thinking, and skills to reflect, evaluate, adapt and implement new cognitive strategies for improved learning and patient care.

Understanding and ongoing learning about oneself as an instrument in patient care is required for safe and effective delivery of practice.

• Review the outcome of treatment for a patient's particular symptom presentation and then adapt own knowledge for future clinical decisions;
• Review and reflect on personal responses and cultural paradigms around patient care challenges, and develop safe, effective and professional care approaches;
• Manage and proactively learn from academic and clinical set-backs by self-evaluation;
• Reflect on the options, ethical implications, and impact for all the stakeholders in patient care decisions;
• Be aware of, and take responsibility for, own personal role in the patient care process.

English literacy skills that allow the creation and interpretation of clear meaning for patient care through a range of symbols and English language text.

Patient care information can be delivered by many different modes and competent literacy skills for these are essential to provide appropriate, safe and effective delivery of care/practice.

• Comprehend, summarise and reference a range of literature in accordance with appropriate academic conventions in written assignments;
• Interpret written and spoken language to enact verbal or written directions;
• Produce accurate, concise and clear documentation which meets legal requirements.

Accurate processing and reasoning with numbers and numerical concepts for patient care decisions.

Competent reasoning and reliable accuracy with numerical concepts are essential for safe and effective care/practice.

• Accurately calculate solutions to medication and pharmaceutical calculations in time-constrained and stressful clinical situations;
• Interpret clinically-significant therapeutic drug levels and perform other pharmacokinetic calculations;
• Accurately interpret quantitative research data and perform suitable statistical calculations.

Verbal communication in English to a standard that allows fluid, clear, and comprehensible two-way discussions tailored to the local English-speaking audiences.

Effective verbal communication, in English, with patients, university and clinical staff is required for effective learning and to provide safe and effective delivery of care/practice.

• Convey spoken messages accurately and effectively in a professional/clinical situation;
• Understand and respond to verbal communication accurately and appropriately in a time-constrained environment;
• Build rapport with a patient to encourage full disclosure of symptoms;
• Present information to, and engage in developing discussions with a wide audience, including academic and professional/clinical presentations.

Non-verbal communication skills that enable respectful communication with others to meet patient care needs.

The ability to recognise, interpret and respond to non-verbal cues, to communicate with congruent and respectful non-verbal behaviour, and to be sensitive to individual and/or cultural variations in non-verbal communication is essential for safe and effective care.

• Recognise patient cues in facial expression, appearance, behaviour, posture, movement;
• Deliver information to a distressed patient/client incorporating non-verbal behaviour that matches the nature of the information;
• Recognise and adjust to differing physical contact preferences of patients.

Ability to produce English text to a standard that provides clear and professional-level communication for patient care, with language usage and style tailored to the targeted recipients.

Effective communication in English text is required to demonstrate applied skills in academic writing conventions and in sustained and organised academic argument and provide safe and effective delivery of care/practice.

• Communicate complex academic and clinical perspectives in writing;
• Summarise and appropriately reference a range of literature  in written assignments;
• Use precise and appropriate language and formatting to construct professional and/or patient care/nursing reports in a timely manner;
• Use precise and appropriate language to contribute to both handwritten and electronic patient records in a time-constrained environment.

Ability to interact with visual inputs sufficiently to manage learning environments and to meet patient care needs.

Elements in the working and teaching environment are delivered by visual means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required to provide safe and effective practice.

• Observe and detect subtle changes in a patient’s response to therapeutic procedures e.g. skin colour and/or appearance;
• Read medication labels and syringe graduations;
• Set-up and safely use equipment and medical technologies;
• Process visual information from monitoring equipment and medical technologies e.g. ECG traces, x-rays, oxygen flow meters.

Ability to interact with auditory inputs sufficiently to manage learning environments and to meet patient care needs.

Elements in the learning and working environments are delivered by auditory means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required to provide safe and effective practice.

• Detect and discriminate changes in speech, breathing or pain response;
• Accurately undertake blood pressure measurements by auscultation;
• Detect and discriminate alarms, emergency calls over PA systems, and urgent verbal information for patient care;
• Follow developing discussions with colleagues and clients for patient care decisions.

Ability to respond to tactile input and provide appropriate tactile interaction sufficient to meet patient care needs.

Elements in the working environment are detected and measured by tactile means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required to provide safe and effective practice. The appropriate use of touch as a part of effective patient care is also required.

• Detect changes in circulation e.g. temperature of extremities, palpable pulses;
• Palpate joints, muscles and soft tissues to detect anatomical or physiological abnormalities;
• Apply appropriate technique when performing venepuncture;
• Provide patient care through appropriate and reassuring touch.

Strength, range of motion, coordination and mobility sufficient to meet patient care needs.

A wide range of physical patient care actions in a time-constrained environment is required to provide safe and effective practice.

• Instigate and contribute to emergency life support;
• Move readily around patients, between work areas and patients, and around varying surfaces and levels, to complete tasks within timeframes;
• Access around bedside equipment, across and patients, across sterile areas without contaminating surfaces;
• Maintain balance and safely assist patient transfers and walking;
• Effectively ascertain patient information from percussion or palpation of a patient's body parts.

Manual dexterity and fine motor skills sufficient to meet patient care needs for the discipline.

A wide range of fine-motor manual tasks in a time-constrained environment are required to provide safe and effective practice.

• Adjust intravenous flow rates;
• Draw up medication into a syringe;
• Open sterile packaging without contaminating contents;
• Remove stiches from a wound.
• Contribute to both handwritten and electronic medical records.

Sustained physical, cognitive and psychosocial performance sufficient to provide safe and complete patient care in a time-constrained environment.

A range of complex, multi-component or extended patient care tasks carried out over a period of time and in a time-constrained environments is required to provide safe and effective practice.

• Sustain study practices and clinical performance to sufficiently engage with the learning workload for a study period, and for the degree, within a constrained timeframe;
• Sustain a working posture, associated manual tasks, cognitive engagement, performance level and emotional control for the full duration of a patient care process e.g. lumbar puncture on a child; initial assessment of a multiple-trauma burn patient; successive and extended patient assessments with minimal breaks;
• Sustain performance for durations that are manageable within overall shift-planning for patient care.

Behaviour that adapts to changing situations sufficiently to maintain safe and complete patient care, and instigates self-care consistent with professional expectations.

Behavioural adaptation is required to manage personal emotional responses as an individual and within teams in changing and unpredictable environments, including emergency situations and times of human distress. Students will also be required to adapt their behaviour appropriately during times of additional stressors in their own lives, whether this adaptation involves ways of continuing to engage with their role or withdrawing for self-care for a period.

• Be receptive and respond appropriately to constructive feedback;
• Adjust ways of working within teams of varied personal and professional backgrounds and clinical opinions to facilitate effective patient decisions;
• Manage own emotions and behaviour effectively when dealing with changing responses of individuals and families in the clinical setting;
• Maintain respectful communication practices in times of increased stressors or workloads;
• Adjust to changing circumstances in a way that allows self-care while maintaining a professional-level focus on the patient.