EXERSCI 753 : Physiotherapy Practicum 3
Science
2025 Semester One (1253) (15 POINTS)
Course Prescription
Course Overview
The course promotes the understanding of appropriate professional ethical and social attitudes, interprofessional roles and facilitates the development of effective and appropriate communication. There is an emphasis on the rehabilitation of patients, across the lifespan, presenting with a variety of conditions involving the musculoskeletal, cardiorespiratory and nervous systems.
The practicum courses will focus on providing a wide range of activities and clinical contexts for the students. These will include:
Cardiopulmonary/Acute - This is an acute placement where students are expected to use their specific acute/cardiopulmonary assessment, reasoning and management skills for a variety of patients across the lifespan.
Neurology/Rehabilitation - These placements could be in acute, sub-acute or long-term neurological/rehabilitation settings and could also include paediatrics. Students will be able to treat patients with a range of conditions requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is broadly defined and could include general or specialist neurological, geriatric, paediatric, amputee, orthopaedic, hand, spinal injury, cardiopulmonary and workplace-related rehabilitation.
Musculoskeletal - This unit allows the student to integrate theory and practical skills in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. Placements may be in a public or private setting, either inpatient orthopaedics or an outpatient area of practice. Students will be able to apply examination and intervention skills and demonstrate the application of clinical reasoning and decision making in patients with musculoskeletal disorders across the lifespan.
Community - This includes any physiotherapy service provided to, and/or in, the community outside a major institution. This could include the following: community centres, aged care facilities, post-acute care/hospital in the home, outreach teams, domiciliary, paediatric services, disability services, health promotion, exercise classes and private practices.
Integrated / general - This covers clinical placements across a broad range of settings including rural/regional placements, private practice, orthopaedics, women’s health, paediatrics, palliative care, amputees, hydrotherapy, workplace rehabilitation etc.
Capabilities Developed in this Course
| Capability 1: | People and Place |
| Capability 2: | Sustainability |
| Capability 3: | Knowledge and Practice |
| Capability 4: | Critical Thinking |
| Capability 5: | Solution Seeking |
| Capability 6: | Communication |
| Capability 7: | Collaboration |
| Capability 8: | Ethics and Professionalism |
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate responsible practice, applying professional behaviour in one specific area of practice appropriate to at least the minimum standard expected for an entry level physiotherapist (Capability 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
- Demonstrate effective and appropriate communication with clients, whanau, carers, family and health professional colleagues in one specific area of practice to at least the minimum standard expected for an entry level physiotherapist. (Capability 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
- Demonstrate responsible practice, according to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, equity and cultural safety (Capability 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
- Demonstrate safe, systematic, efficient and accurate physical assessments. (Capability 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8)
- Demonstrate accurate analysis and critical interpretation of assessment findings to identify client's problems and set realistic short and long terms goals for a specific practice area (Capability 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
- Critically evaluate evidence to select, perform, monitor and progress interventions safely in a specific area of practice and appropriately in collaboration with clients (Capability 3, 4, 5 and 6)
- Demonstrate effective implementation of discharge planning to address client and carer's needs for ongoing care in one specific area of practice (Capability 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7)
- Demonstrate effective planning and education/health promotion in one specific area of practice with clients and caregivers (Capability 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8)
- Demonstrate effective integration of Maori models of health and wellbeing into the planning and equitable delivery of physiotherapy provision in one specific area of physiotherapy practice (Capability 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8)
- Critically reflect on the management, within the interdisciplinary team, of clients in one specific area of physiotherapy practice (Capability 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
Assessments
| Assessment Type | Percentage | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Professional Development | 70% | Individual Coursework |
| Portfolio | 30% | Individual Coursework |
| 2 types | 100% |
| Assessment Type | Learning Outcome Addressed | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| Professional Development | ||||||||||
| Portfolio | ||||||||||
Special Requirements
Workload Expectations
Students are expected to spend 40 hours per week in supervised clinical practice with four hours per week self-directed learning time each week.
Attendance at clinical practicum placements is mandatory and the assessment of students consists of a cumulative performance appraisal over the six weeks. It is therefore expected that students will attend for the whole of the allocated time.
Delivery Mode
Campus Experience
Attendance is required at the clinical workplace setting to complete the course.
Attendance on campus is not required.
The activities for the course are scheduled as full workdays five days per week with four hours per week self-directed learning time each week. However, the structure of these may vary depending on the requirements of the clinical workplace setting.
Learning Resources
Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).
Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.
Student Feedback
During the course Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the staff responsible for the course and staff-student consultative committees.
At the end of the course students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback.
Your feedback helps to improve the course and its delivery for all students.
Feedback from students and clinical supervisors was that a full-time 5 day per week placement was preferred to four days. In order to ensure students have time to complete other programme requirements while on placement, 4 hours of self-directed learning time per week has been incorporated for practicum courses in 2025.
Academic Integrity
The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework, tests and examinations as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review.
Class Representatives
Class representatives are students tasked with representing student issues to departments, faculties, and the wider university. If you have a complaint about this course, please contact your class rep who will know how to raise it in the right channels. See your departmental noticeboard for contact details for your class reps.
Copyright
The content and delivery of content in this course are protected by copyright. Material belonging to others may have been used in this course and copied by and solely for the educational purposes of the University under license.
You may copy the course content for the purposes of private study or research, but you may not upload onto any third party site, make a further copy or sell, alter or further reproduce or distribute any part of the course content to another person.
Inclusive Learning
All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.
Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website http://disability.auckland.ac.nz
Special Circumstances
If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.
If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.
This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.
Learning Continuity
In the event of an unexpected disruption we undertake to maintain the continuity and standard of teaching and learning in all your courses throughout the year. If there are unexpected disruptions the University has contingency plans to ensure that access to your course continues and your assessment is fair, and not compromised. Some adjustments may need to be made in emergencies. You will be kept fully informed by your course co-ordinator, and if disruption occurs you should refer to the University Website for information about how to proceed.
The delivery mode may change depending on COVID restrictions. Any changes will be communicated through Canvas.
In the event of that the clinical workplace setting decides to exclude students from attending in person for some reason then every effort will be made to ensure that you are able to complete the 1000 clinical hours across the MPhysioPrac programme that are required for an application to be registered as a physiotherapist.
Student Charter and Responsibilities
The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html.
Disclaimer
Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.
In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.