96038 Professional Practice 2
Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a
particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source
of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.
Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Requisite(s): 96027 Eye and Visual Systems AND 96028 Binocular Vision and Ocular Motility 1 AND 96029 Ocular Pathology 1 AND 96030 Introduction to Professional Practice AND 96031 Clinical Management of Refractive Error AND 96032 Binocular Vision and Ocular Motility 2 AND 96033 Ocular Pathology 2
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Description
This subject provides opportunities for students to extend their clinical knowledge and demonstrate an understanding of clinical practice in a variety of hospital, private practice and community settings. Through learning in the clinical setting, professional behaviour is further developed and a broader understanding of the role of the orthoptist in managing eye care for a range of patients and clients as part of the multidisciplinary health care team is gained. Learning is directed by professional and skills-based activities, which are used for both summative and formative assessment. Students are required to reflect upon their professional development and to demonstrate fundamental competencies and skills in a clinical setting. During this clinical subject or in subsequent professional practice subjects, students attend at least one rural or regional clinical placement.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
| 38.4. | Create and effectively communicate appropriate management plans that reflect sound clinical reasoning and ophthalmic and orthoptic knowledge, integrated with current evidence. |
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| 38.5. | Demonstrate an understanding of the orthoptist’s role within a patient-focused interdisciplinary eye-care team to ensure the provision of comprehensive and effective patient care. |
| 38.1. | Demonstrate intermediate competency in orthoptic and ophthalmic clinical skills to ensure the safe, accurate and efficient investigation of patients. |
| 38.2. | Demonstrate professional behaviour, and effective communication in the delivery of ethical and responsible orthoptic practice that benefits the care of patients, through the observation of experienced practitioners and their own interaction with patients as a novice practitioner. |
| 38.3. | Reflect on knowledge, skills and personal aptitude to adapt behaviour within the clinical setting and apply self-awareness to further personal learning and sound and ethical clinical practice. |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
The learning outcomes for this subject are as follows:
- Practice professional expertise and clinical reasoning to provide safe, responsible, and evidence-based orthoptic care for the benefit of the community. (01.01)
- Lead and collaborate within disciplinary and interdisciplinary health care teams to provide best practice health care and contribute to positive patient outcomes. (01.02)
- Utilise research knowledge and skills to analyse and synthesise literature, design research methodology and ethically conduct research in the field of orthoptics. (02.01)
- Engage in reflective practice to support lifelong learning and professional development that enhances patient outcomes and health service delivery. (02.02)
- Advocate for patients, clients, and communities to ensure person-centred and ethical approaches to practice and supporting equity in eye care delivery in national and global health systems. (03.01)
- Critically reflect on Indigenous Australian contexts and apply principles of cultural safety and ethical research practices to work effectively with and for Indigenous Australians within the orthoptic profession. (04.01)
Contribution to the development of graduate attributes
In addition, this subject contributes to the development of the following graduate attributes:
- Lifelong learning
- Professional capacity
- Global Citizenship
- Cultural Competence
Teaching and learning strategies
This is an external clinical placement subject. Students are allocated block placements prior to the start of the calendar B session and one day per week during the session. Clinical learning is supported by on-campus workshops at relevant times during the session.
Practice-orientated Learning: As a clinical placement subject, students have the opportunity to engage in clinical orthoptic practice, utilise and further develop their hands-on clinical skills and apply their academic knowledge of orthoptics to real patients and authentic experiences and scenarios within the clinical environment. Learning in the clinical environment is under the mentorship of qualified health professionals, in particular, orthoptists and ophthalmologists. Students are expected to actively engage in all aspects of clinical orthoptic practice including; the assessment of patients, discussion of patient cases and management approaches and clinical troubleshooting.
Collaborative Learning: Orthoptists work within a multi-disciplinary team environment and often collaborate with other health professionals to provide optimal patient care. Through clinical placement, students have the opportunity to work within these collaborative teams and develop both general teamwork skills and specific clinical skills such as; patient handover, collaborative management planning and case conferencing. Students also collaborate closely with peers, orthoptic clinicians and other eye clinic staff (administration, ophthalmology registrars and consultants, ophthalmic nurses, optometrists and other allied health professionals) throughout their clinical placement. In on-campus workshops, students also work collaboratively to discuss and reflect on clinical experiences, troubleshoot clinical difficulties and participate in case-based learning.
Case-based Learning: Case-based learning is a form of problem-based learning (PBL) and a key learning strategy used in workshops. . Case-based workshops are used to support learning in the clinical environment and bridge between academic learning and experiences in the clinical learning environment. These activities promote active engagement of students in the classroom through collaborative analysis and solving of patient scenarios and develop clinical reasoning skills. Students also prepare written case studies of patients assessed in the clinical environment as part of their workbook assessment. This tasks further support preparation for the viva examination.
Reflective Learning: Reflective practice is an essential skill for health professionals to develop. Students are encouraged to critically reflect on their learning throughout the subject to identify areas where they may improve their performance and to assist in the development of lifelong learning skills. Specific activities where reflective learning is encouraged are; self-evaluation of learning within the clinical environment in the clinical workbook assessment and reflection on self-developed learning goals. Reflection is further encouraged through the patient education task and collaborative discussion about this task within workshops.
Self-directed Learning: Students are encouraged to continue to utilise the orthoptic dedicated teaching clinics to practice their clinical skills in preparation for clinical placement. A number of clinical placement sites provide information about the types of patients and area of specialisation of their clinic. Students are further encouraged to review this information prior to attending clinical placement and revise key concepts and skills related to the clinical site area of practice. Additional patient case studies are posted on Canvas throughout the session for students to work on off-campus and students are encouraged to email these to the subject coordinator for additional formative feedback. These case studies are not assessable and it is optional for students to complete these for feedback.
Ongoing Feedback: Students are provided with immediate feedback relating to the performance of clinical skills, clinical reasoning and understanding of key concepts of clinical practice by supervisors when on clinical placement. Formal feedback about a student’s performance while on clinical placement is provided via the clinician feedback assessment. Students are further provided formative feedback in workshops, on additional case studies completed and in mock viva examinations in preparation for their final viva examination. Formal written feedback is provided for the workbook assessment task activities.
Content (topics)
Professional Practice 2 is the second subject in the clinical stream of the Masters of Orthoptics course. This subject allows students to apply clinical skills and orthoptic knowledge obtained in the first and second semester of the course. This subject advances the foundation clinical learning in Professional Practice 1 allowing the students to take on greater responsibility as novice practitioners in the clinical setting. This is further built on in subsequent clinical subjects 96075 Professional Practice 3 and informs learning in 96040 Advanced Professional Practice in the final semester of the course
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Clinical portfolio
| Intent: | This assessment provides an opportunity for students to document their learning experiences in the clinical environment and development as a novice practitioner. Students will further their clinical competency and reflective practice through the completion of the clinical portfolio. |
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| Objective(s): | This task is aligned with the following subject learning objectives: 38.1, 38.2, 38.3, 38.4 and 38.5 This task is aligned with the following course learning outcomes: .05, .06, .09, 01.01, 01.02, 02.01, 02.02, 03.01 and 04.01 |
| Type: | Portfolio |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 40% |
| Criteria: | See criteria provided in class and on Canvas. |
Assessment task 2: Supervisor feedback
| Intent: | Students are required to actively participate and challenge their existing knowledge and skills on clinical placement. Clinical supervisors have a significant role in assessing a student’s professional behaviour, communication skills, clinical reasoning and competence in the clinical environment. It is intended that this assessment will provide an indication of the student’s development as a novice practitioner and determine whether competency standards for orthoptists set by the Australian Orthoptic Board have been developed to an appropriate level for this stage of the course. |
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| Objective(s): | This task is aligned with the following subject learning objectives: 38.1, 38.2, 38.3, 38.4 and 38.5 This task is aligned with the following course learning outcomes: .05, .06, .09, 01.01, 01.02, 02.01, 02.02, 03.01 and 04.01 |
| Type: | Report |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 15% |
| Criteria: | Provided via Canvas |
Assessment task 3: Formative Viva
| Intent: | The formative viva provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate their clinical reasoning based on a patient assessment completed in the clinical environment. This assessment is intended to prepare students for the final viva. |
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| Objective(s): | This task is aligned with the following subject learning objectives: 38.2, 38.3, 38.4 and 38.5 This task is aligned with the following course learning outcomes: .05, .06, .09, 01.01, 02.01, 02.02, 03.01 and 04.01 |
| Type: | Examination |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 15% |
| Length: | 20 minutes |
| Criteria: | Provided in Canvas |
Assessment task 4: Viva (must-pass component)
| Intent: | The viva is a verbal examination that provides students the opportunity to demonstrate their clinical reasoning, diagnostic and management skill centred on an authentic patient case and sound background knowledge is required to justify approaches taken in the clinical environment. |
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| Objective(s): | This task is aligned with the following subject learning objectives: 38.2, 38.3, 38.4 and 38.5 This task is aligned with the following course learning outcomes: .05, .06, .09, 01.01, 02.01, 02.02, 03.01 and 04.01 |
| Type: | Examination |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Length: | 30 minutes plus reading time |
| Criteria: | Provided via Canvas |
Minimum requirements
Students are required to attend 90% of scheduled workshops. It is expected that students attend 100% of scheduled clinical placements.
Note: there is a must-pass assessment in this Subject. Please check assessment descriptions for details.
Required texts
Coursework Assessments Procedures
Graduate School of Health Policy, Guidelines and Procedures (login required)
Discipline of Orthoptics Student Clinical Manual
Recommended texts
Clinical and fieldwork placement in the health professions (Oxford)
Edited by Karen Stagnitti, Adrian Schoo, Dianne Welch