Program Overview

NRSG541 - Perioperative: Principles in Nursing Specialty Practice

Year

2024

Credit Points

10

Campus Offering

The unit is offered online.

Unit Rationale, Description, and Aim

Contemporary nursing practice embeds scientific evidence-based concepts for the promotion of positive health outcomes and application of care across a lifespan continuum. This unit supports the acquisition of specialist knowledge and skills to ensure that nurses understand their role in continuing professional development and the provision of safe and respectful specialist nursing care.

Learning Outcomes

To successfully complete this unit, students will be able to demonstrate the following learning outcomes:

• LO1: Assess the impact of illness while critically reflecting upon the key pathophysiological concepts that contribute to comorbidity and the complex care required for patients.
• LO2: Compare and contrast the potential ethical, physical, psychological, and psychosocial impacts experienced by patients, their families, and carers.
• LO3: Differentiate between the acute and chronic care trajectories for patients and evaluate how they influence health and wellbeing.
• LO4: Reflect on the role of the registered nurse in the perioperative setting in undertaking professional development toward advancing and extending clinical practice.
• LO5: Assess the risk factors for patients and appraise and implement a range of assessment techniques and strategies used for harm mitigation.

Content

Topics will include:

• Evidence-based practice (EBP)
• 5A's of the EBP process
• Holistic health assessment of persons in perioperative settings
• Ethical practice in the perioperative setting
• Person- and family-centred care
• Cultural Competence
• Harm mitigation
• Risk assessment
• Risk prevention strategies
• Australian accreditation standards in harm and risk mitigation
• Role of the specialist clinical nurse in the perioperative setting
• Importance of continuing professional development
• Leadership in the specialist clinical setting
• Mentorship in the specialist clinical setting
• Nursing anaesthetics
• The circulating nurse in the perioperative setting
• The scrub nurse in the perioperative setting
• Post anaesthetic recovery and pain management
• Nurse anaesthesiology from a global context
• Self-Care and care of others
• Strategies for maintenance of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of self and others

Learning and Teaching Strategy and Rationale

Teaching and learning strategies utilized in this unit will support students in meeting the aim and achieving the learning outcomes relevant to this unit as well as to the broader course learning outcomes. This unit is offered via the ACU Online platform and uses active learning to enable students to reflect on key pathophysiological concepts that contribute to comorbidity and potential ethical, physical, psychological, and psychosocial impacts experienced by patients presenting for surgery.

Assessment Strategy and Rationale

In order to pass this unit, students are expected to submit three graded assessment tasks and achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across all assessments. The assessment strategy in this unit encourages critical analysis that embodies leadership qualities in the specialist clinical setting.

Overview of Assessments

• Assessment Task 1: Forum Post - Enables student engagement with peers and the sharing of ideas and knowledge. (20%)
• Assessment Task 2: Reflective Essay - Enables students to reflect on an ethical issue in the specialist perioperative care setting. (40%)
• Assessment Task 3: Literature Review - Enables students to locate, organize, analyze, and synthesize information related to a complex perioperative presentation. (40%)

Representative Texts and References

• Recommended text:
  • Greenhalgh, T., Bidwell, J., Crisp, E., Lambros, A., & Warland, J. (2020). Understanding research methods for evidence-based practice in health (Second edition. ed.). John Wiley & Sons Australia.
  • Hoffmann, T., Bennett, S., & Del Mar, C. (2017). Evidence-based practice across the health professions (3rd ed.). Elsevier Australia.
  • Knights, K. M., Darroch, S., Rowland, A., & Bushell, M. (2023). Pharmacology for health professionals (6th edition. ed.). Elsevier Australia.
  • McCance, K. L., Huether, S. E., Brashers, V. L., & Rote, N. S. (2019). Pathophysiology : the biologic basis for disease in adults and children (Eighth edition ed.). Elsevier.
  • Patton, K. T., & Thibodeau, G. A. (2019). Anatomy & physiology (Adapted International edition. ed.). Elsevier.
  • Sutherland-Fraser, S., Davies, M., Gillespie, B. M., & Lockwood, B. (2021). Perioperative Nursing: An Introduction. Elsevier.
  • Taylor, K., & Guerin, P. (2019). Health care and Indigenous Australians : cultural safety in practice (Third edition. ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Other recommended references will be made in the extended unit outline based on the specialty of the students enrolled in the unit.