PAR5330 - Extended care paramedicine 2 - 2019

This unit will focus on the advanced assessment, management, prescribing and referral of patients with acute and chronic gastrointestinal complaints as well as patients presenting with infection, inflammation and chronic wound healing in the out of hospital environment.

This unit will cover the acute management of urinary catheters, PEG's, otoscope use for ENT assessment and non-complicated foreign body object removal.

This unit will also cover the acute management or appropriate prescribing of non-opioid analgesics, local anaesthetics, antiemetics, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory drugs related to the presentations or conditions covered in this unit of study.

Students must be actively engaged in appropriate clinical practice, clinical placements or clinical simulation to achieve the outcomes of this unit. It is expected that students will gain an advanced authority to practice after demonstrating the requisite clinical knowledge, skills and training of this unit as per the local statutory guidelines after completing an internship at the end of their course.

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to;

1. Examine and apply knowledge of normal gastrointestinal and genitourinary anatomy and physiology to describe the structure and function as well as common abnormalities and significant acute or chronic pathologies associated with these two systems;
2. Analyse the common causes, clinical assessments, complications and outcomes associated with foreign body objects in both adult and paediatric patients;
3. Implement knowledge, skills and evidence based practice to safely and professionally manage acute complications associated with urinary catheters, PEG's and non-complicated foreign body object removal;
4. Formulate appropriate pharmacotherapeutic regimes using the relevant drugs available for the extended care paramedic in the management of acute or chronic gastrointestinal and genitourinary conditions including appropriate and judicious use of antibiotics, non-opioid analgesics, anti-inflammatories and antipyretic drugs;
5. Synthesise how community emergency health practitioners might relate to and coordinate with hospital emergency departments, general practitioners and other healthcare services for optimal patient-centred outcomes in the management of these conditions.
6. Reflect on the acute or chronic presentations beyond the technical skill, scope of clinical practice or diagnostic capabilities of an extended care paramedic as it relates to the management of gastrointestinal, genitourinary or foreign body object removal presentations.

• Clinical practice discussion forum (5%)
• Student clinical skill/procedure exemplar videos x 2 (8 minutes each)25%
• Literature review (2000 words) (30%)
• Final exam (mcq's, saq's and case studies) (2 hours) (hurdle)(40%)

Students will be expected to complete at least 6 hours of distance education learning and 6 hours of private study /self-directed learning per week.

See also Unit timetable information

Paramedic practice