Public Health
What you need to do
Before preparing for a public health professional experience placement, please contact the Subject Coordinator for TM5571 Public Health Placement to discuss your options and the subject requirements:
Assoc. Professor Richard Franklin
College of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Veterinary Sciences
Phone (07) 4781 5939
Richard.Franklin@jcu.edu.au
This guide will assist you to organise your professional experience placement. However, you may be required to fulfil additional requirements depending on where your placement will occur (e.g. a national Working with Children Check, current resuscitation certification, current vaccinations). Please confirm with a representative from the placement facility what their specific requirements are, and ensure you meet these requirements prior to beginning your placement.
Prior to placement, you must ensure you have:
- Formally enrolled in the subject TM5571 Public Health Placement
- Developed a learning contract to be endorsed by the subject coordinator and placement supervisor
- Completed and submitted the form Approval to undertake public health placement.
- Completed a health and safety plan via RiskWare
Forms and supporting documents including the TM5571 Subject Outline will be provided to you by the subject coordinator.
The work you will be undertaking during your placement must be voluntary. It is not with your employer.
The placement must be public health related; it cannot be clinical practice.
You should not be undertaking any medical procedures as part of your placement.
Your placement must consist of 152 hours of voluntary work, which equates to four weeks of work at 38 hours per week.
These hours can be undertaken as a block or spread out over the semester, e.g. 15 hours a week for 10 weeks.
As a Public Health placement student, you are responsible for covering all costs associated with your placement, e.g. accommodation, travel expenses.
JCU Placement Procedure and Procedure for Infectious Disease
As a JCU professional experience placement student, you are required to read the Professional Experience Placement Procedures for students within the Division of Tropical Health and Medicine. The document contains vital information for all students of the Division of Tropical Health and Medicine (DTHM) about the responsibilities of both students and the University in relation to professional experience placement. The document also contains important information about the principles underpinning the administration of student placement.
You are also required to read the Procedure for Infectious Disease for students within the Division of Tropical Health and Medicine. This document guides students and the patients or clients they encounter regarding duty of care and minimising the risk of spreading or contracting vaccination-preventable infectious or blood-borne diseases.
After reading these documents you must sign the Student Declaration, which confirms you have read and understood the contents of both procedures, and email the signed document to the Professional Experience Placement Unit.
JCU Confidentiality Acknowledgement
You must complete and sign the JCU Confidentiality Acknowledgement every year.
In signing the Acknowledgement, you – the student – acknowledge that you have been instructed in the concept of patient, client and business confidentiality, and will respect clients’ confidentiality at all times, including during tutorials, lectures and discussions, both professional and private.
Download, complete, sign and email the Confidentiality Acknowledgement to the Professional Experience Placement Unit and retain a copy for your professional portfolio.
There are three pieces of assessment for TM5571 against which you will be graded as competent or not competent:
- Learning Contract (30%)
- Risk management plan via Riskware (10%)
- A portfolio that includes analytical reasoning and a reflective journal or your learning (70%)
The hurdle requirements for TM5571 involve two letters from your supervisor:
- The first letter verifies acceptance of your placement and includes the Approval to undertake public health placement form
- The second letter verifies your attendance at placement and completion of activities specified in your learning contract
Students approved to undertake an overseas placement must register their trip with JCU for insurance and safety purposes. Registration should be done at least eight weeks before departure where possible.
Please follow this link to complete JCU's Pre Departure Checks & Travel Registration Form (online) for your overseas placement.
If your placement is in the United States or Canada, please contact the subject coordinator to discuss if JCU insurance will cover the placement.