PGC5118 · Palliative care

Overview

This unit will develop your ability to apply evidence-based practice (EBP) skills to make therapeutic decisions in palliative care settings, by exploring symptom management, shared decision-making and end of life planning. Case-based learning and reflective tasks will challenge you to critically assess and refine your ability to assess patient information, identify medication-related problems, and make evidence-based recommendations to support the quality use of medicines. To undertake this unit, you must be a practising healthcare provider in a position with patient contact.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

This unit contains one or more competency hurdle assessment tasks that you must successfully complete to be able to pass the unit. You have one attempt, plus an additional assessment capped at 50% of the available marks for the task, to demonstrate your competency in the competency hurdle assessment task. If you fail to meet the hurdle requirement, you will receive a fail grade for the unit regardless of the total marks you achieve.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Integrate clinical assessments and patient history to develop evidence-based clinical management plans in palliative care.
2. Justify evidence based pharmacological recommendations relating to palliative care to healthcare consumers including patients, family members and multi-disciplinary healthcare professionals.
3. Recognise, monitor, and manage (pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically) symptoms and treatment side-effects common in palliative care.
4. Apply the principles of quality use of medicines in prescribing and de-prescribing in palliative care.
5. Critically reflect on your individual learning process and progress in clinical competence.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled online learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average 10-12 hours of learning activities per week, including teacher directed learning, independent study and reading time, participation in online discussions, research and preparation for assignments.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.