Care of Patients with Minor Illness and Minor Injury

Aims of the module

The aim of the module is to enable you to develop knowledge of the principles underlying the care of patients presenting with minor illness and minor injury. 

Learning outcomes (level 7)

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion, you will be able to:

Critically appraise the range of approaches utilised in the assessment and triage of patients presenting with a minor illness and a minor injury

Demonstrate mastery of the pathophysiological concepts associated with a minor illness and a with a minor injury

Critically evaluate and synthesise the evidence base, clinical guidelines and policies which relate to the management and therapeutic interventions utilised for patients suffering a minor illness and those with a minor injury

Discriminate and differentiate between the range of patient groups who present with minor illness and injury

Critically analyse how learning from this module has transformed your understanding of the care of minor illness / injury

Final Summative Assignment Guidelines

The Summative assignment for this module will take the form of a 3,500-word essay.  Before we go into detail about how to structure your assignment, it is worth considering how academic work is marked.

Your assignment will be judged as either a pass or fail based upon whether it meets two essential criteria:

1. That the assignment has fully addressed all 5 of the learning outcomes for the module (listed above and within the Module Descriptor (MDF) for the module)
2. That the level of writing is of a standard, which meets the criteria of a pass grade (40 or above).  This will be judged against the Universities Grade Descriptors for level 7 found within Appendix 3a of the academic regulations.

The grade descriptors are used to match your assignment against a series of statements and are utilised to determine the level of mark you are awarded.

Essentially, the highest marks are awarded when you demonstrate to the marker that you have an up to date knowledge and understanding of the theories and concepts relating to the subject, demonstrate a critical approach, and utilise a broad range of evidence, reasoning, reflection and problem solving within the assignment.

You can achieve this by

1. Adopting a sustained critical approach – try to integrate some analysis and discussion within your writing – avoid simple descriptions or listing material, instead argue the pros and cons of the topic.
2. Support key points with a reference
3. Linking the theory back to your own practice

Assignment Structure:

Your assignment should be arranged and structured under the following subheadings:

Introduction (Approx. 150 words)

Case Presentation 1 – A Minor Illness (Approx. 1100 words)

Case Presentation 2 – A Minor Injury (Approx. 1100 words)

Appraisal of Specific Patient Groups (Approx. 750 words)

LO5 –Reflection (Approx. 250 words)

Conclusion (Approx. 150 words)

Reference list (Harvard Method – As per current Cite them Right guidelines)

Appendices (if required)

Introduction (Approx. 150 words)

Begin the assignment with an introduction to explain to the reader the purpose of the assignment.  This should be a very brief outline only.  As you will be making reference within the assignment to patient cases you yourself have been involved with, ensure you make clear within the introduction that confidentiality has been maintained and any patient details have been anonymised.  This should be supported by a reference to your professional regulatory body.  If you choose to write your assignment in the first person, a reference should be inserted justifying why you have chosen this approach.

Case Presentation 1 – A Minor Illness (Approx. 1100 words)

Within this section you need to discuss a specific care episode you have been involved with relating to a patient presenting with a Minor Illness. 

To preserve your word count and avoiding the need to tell the reader the story of what happened, running the risk the writing becoming too descriptive, we recommend that you place a description of the care episode within the appendices of your assignment and refer to it within the main body of your text.  You could “set the scene” within the main body of text however limit this to a couple of sentences.

Within this section of your assignment, you will specifically focus on learning outcomes 1, 2 and 3.  Your discussion of the case needs to demonstrate your ability to critically evaluate and appraise the care that was given and the interventions that were utilized in the management of the problem.  The analysis must demonstrate your ability to evaluate and synthesise the relevant evidence (including research evidence, policy and clinical guidelines) in order to determine whether the patient’s management was congruent with current evidence.

In order to ensure your analysis addresses the module learning outcomes (LO’s) within your case presentation you must:

LO1 – Critically appraise the range of approaches utilised in the assessment and triage of patients presenting with a minor illness and a minor injury

LO2 – Demonstrate your mastery of the pathophysiological concepts associated with the presentation

LO3 – Critically evaluate and synthesise the evidence base, clinical guidelines and policies which relate to the management and therapeutic interventions utilised

Case Presentation 2 – A Minor Injury (Approx. 1100 words)

Within this section, you will repeat the process outlined above, this time focusing on a patient who presented with a Minor Injury.

Appraisal of Specific Patient Groups (Approx. 750 words)

LO4 requires you to discriminate and differentiate between the different needs of a range of patient groups.  In this section you therefore need to demonstrate how patient assessment and management is adapted to accommodate the needs of patient groups who have specialist needs such as children, the elderly or those with mental health conditions.  You may wish to within this section specifically focus on how assessment and triage may be adapted.

Finally LO5 (Approx 250 words) – Undertake a reflection of your learning from this module and how you have changed your practice as a result.

For this learning outcome please write a short summary of your learning achievements and provide an action plan for your continued and future learning needs. Start with where you felt your level of knowledge of minor illness and injury was before you studied this module, continuing to highlight how you have developed your knowledge, outlining how this new learning can be applied in your practice, supported by good quality evidence from the literature, demonstrating critical analysis.  You may want to use a reflective model template for this.  Examples of these are Gibbs Reflective cycle (1988), or Rolf’s (2001) What? So what? Now what?  These are not mandatory and a paragraph discussing your practice and implementation of these skills will also be acceptable.  As this section is discussing your personal practice, the use of the first person writing in this section is appropriate, even if you have used the third person in the rest of the assignment.   

Conclusion (Approx. 150 words)

Finish off the assignment with a conclusion summarizing the key points you have made within the essay

Reference list (Harvard Method – As per current Cite them Right guidelines)

Appendices

Appendices are not compulsory, but may be used to present a brief description of the cases you are discussing within the assignment.

Final note

Please do not include any actual Trust policies as appendices or likewise within the assignment to ensure there is no breach of confidentiality.

Word Count

The word count includes the body of the work (i.e. the main text), within which all the learning outcomes should be demonstrated, but excludes:

• Reference list/Bibliographies
• Tables and the title of tables (these should be placed in the appendices)
• Graphs (also in the appendices)
• Appendices

Note: Quotations should not normally be more than three lines of text, and are included in the wordage and the number of these kept to an absolute minimum (1 or 2 in an assignment this size).

Your final written assignment will be submitted via turnitin and marked anonymously, therefore no University cover sheet/extension request form is required for this component.

Your written work should be formatted:

• 12 pt font size,
• Verdana,
• 1.5 line spaced or double spaced
• Justify the margins