UWA Handbook 2025

Unit Overview

Description

The two extended clinical placement units are designed for final year DPM students to prepare the student for entry into the workplace upon graduation as a registered health professional.. This unit builds-on and develops students accumulated clinical experiences, knowledge, skills and behaviours which have been curated through the clinical podiatric practice units via experiential work-integrated learning. Students consolidate clinical reasoning, knowledge, skills and professional attributes acquired across the course during these placements. Students consolidate professional identity, undertaking the role of the professional, ethical practitioner, the advocate, the educator, the researcher, the team member and leader by delivering exemplary patient-centered care. Students develop the capacity to perform effective reflective practice and an appreciation of social determinants of health, foot health needs in the community, and the professional role and responsibilities of podiatrists in the community, and therefore form the basis for lifelong learning in professional practice, while consolidating knowledge and skills acquired across the course. Students will experience team work and collaboration with a range of health professionals in an interdisciplinary environment. Students consolidate learning and application of therapeutic management of patients by integrating patient history and clinical examination findings, patient context and treatment factors, to determine appropriate prescribed medicines.

Credit

6 points

Offering
(see Timetable)

Availability	Location	Mode
Non-standard teaching period	UWA (Perth)	Face to face

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) display professional behaviour in a variety of work integrated learning settings; including communicating and interacting appropriately with other health professionals, independently or in teams, within a range of settings and diverse client groups

; (2) evaluate the role of podiatrists within the health care system and broader community, operating within professional, ethical and legal frameworks;

; (3) demonstrate full integration of reflective practice, into all aspects of behaviour, engagement in peer mentorship, one's own culture and perception of others from different cultures and interprofessional practice

; (4) reflect on how one's own culture and perceptions influence interactions with others from different cultures

; (5) demonstrate within the variety of WIL settings (inclusive of UWA on-site clinic) safe practice in the assessment and generation of differential diagnoses for conditions affecting the lower limb, performance of minor surgery, and the (supervised) prescription and administration of medications

; (6) demonstrate within the variety of WIL settings (inclusive of UWA on-site clinic) safe practice treatment and management skills for complex conditions affecting the lower limb foot and ankle, including performance of minor surgery, and the (supervised) prescription and administration of medications for a variety of patient groups; (7) demonstrate clinical reasoning skills in the selection and supervised prescription of scheduled medications for treatment of conditions affecting the lower limb, foot and ankle; (8) demonstrate the capacity to implement strategies for assessing progress and review of patient's management, deterioration, health maintenance, shared patient care arrangements, health promotion and disease prevention in a range of population sub-groups during WIL; and (9) demonstrate a person-centred approach to history taking, identifying and planning for individual patients contextualising their medical, clinical and pharmaceutical history, SDOH and health literacy.

Assessment

Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) clinical assessment(s); (2) assignment(s); and (3) professional behaviour assessment. Further information is available in the unit outline.

To pass this unit, a student must: (a) achieve an overall mark of 50 per cent or higher for the unit; and (b) achieve the requisite requirements(s) or a mark of 50 per cent or greater, whichever is higher and specified in the unit outline, for the clinical assessment(s) and professional behaviour assessment components.

Student may be offered supplementary assessment in this unit if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Unit Coordinator(s)

Dr Kim Holmes

Unit rules

Prerequisites

(a)
Enrolment in

Doctor of Podiatric Medicine 91870, and (b)

successful completion of

PODI4225 Podiatric Populations 2 (ID 7824) PODI4226 Clinical Podiatric Practice 4 (ID 7841) PODI4227 Podiatric Surgery and Clinical Therapeutics (ID 7842) PODI4228 The High Risk Foot (ID 7843) PODI4000 Research Project Development (ID 7844)

Co-requisites

PODI5331 Podiatric Populations 3 (ID 7845) PODI5332 Clinical Podiatric Practice 5 (ID 7846) PODI5334 Research Project 1 (ID 7849)

Incidental fees

Incidental student fees and charges are costs incurred by students as part of their studies at UWA that are in addition to their tuition fees (further information is available "
Participation in this unit will incur the following incidental fee(s):
(1) Replacement costs for borrowed equipment (estimated cost - $20 - $5000)
(2) Transport costs associated with attending urban, rural and remote field placements (estimated cost - $100 - $3000).

Contact hours

Full time clinical placement (Monday - Friday): Approximately 37 hours per week for 8 weeks block placement