Unit rationale, description and aim
Advances in surgical care, increasing patient complexity, and the demands of culturally diverse populations require specialist surgical nurses to exercise advanced clinical knowledge, ethical reasoning, and leadership in patient care. This unit equips nursing students with the skills and critical understanding necessary to deliver safe, evidence-based, and people-centred surgical nursing care in complex clinical environments.
Students will critically examine interprofessional collaboration and shared decision-making frameworks to optimise outcomes for patients and families. They will analyse complex ethical dilemmas, contemporary practices, and healthcare challenges in surgical contexts to develop context-sensitive, evidence-based solutions. The unit emphasises reflective practice, highlighting the role of the specialist surgical nurse in leading evidence-based initiatives, upholding professional standards, and advocating for safe and ethical care.
The aim of this unit is to enable students to integrate advanced surgical nursing knowledge, critical evaluation, and ethical reasoning to deliver culturally equitable and responsive care. On completion of the unit, graduates will be prepared to lead clinical practice improvements, influence patient outcomes, and contribute to high-quality surgical care within multidisciplinary healthcare teams.
Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Critically apply principles of interprofessional c...
Learning Outcome 01
Critically evaluate complex ethical problems, info...
Learning Outcome 02
Critically examine and justify the leadership role...
Learning Outcome 03
Critically evaluate and apply evidence to inform c...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
- Key Concepts in Advanced Surgical Nursing Practice
- Introduction to Advanced Practice Nursing (APN)
- Role of the surgical nursing specialist
- Professional identity, standards, and development
- Translating evidence into practice collaboration (IPE), communication, and shared decision-making (SDM)
- Family centred care and culturally responsive care
- Key Concepts in Evidence-Based Practice in Surgical Nursing
- 5As of EBP
- Translating evidence into practice
- Barriers and enablers in integrating evidence into practice
- Critical appraisal
- Ethical Practice in Surgical Nursing
- Health professionals’ codes of professional conduct
- Code of Conduct
- Ethics, ethical issues and ethical decision-making in surgical nursing practice
- Ethical principles
- Informed consent
- Truth telling
- Confidentiality
- Use of restraints
- Cultural safety
- End of life decisions
- Advanced Care Directives
- Clinical Governance and harm mitigation in Surgical Nursing
- NSQHS standards
- ACORN standards for perioperative nursing
- ANZCA perioperative care framework
- Risk management
- Preoperative phase
- Intraoperative phase
- Postoperative phase
- Documentation and communication
- Patient deterioration and resuscitation
- Ethical Practice in Gerontological Nursing
- Health professionals’ codes of professional conduct
- Code of Conduct for Aged Care
- Ethics and ethical issues in gerontological nursing practice
- Ethical principles
- Elder abuse
- Consent and cognitive decline
- End of life decisions
- Use of restraints
- Resource allocation
- True telling
- Cultural safety
- Voluntary assisted dying
- Specialty nursing care for complex and or diverse perioperative presentation
- Paediatric
- Geriatric
- Bariatric
- Neurodiverse
- Gender diverse
- Obstetric
- End of life Care, Palliative Care & Bereavement in Surgical Nursing
- Ethical, physical, psychological and psychosocial impacts
- People/family centred care
- Cultural safety and care for linguistically diverse patients
- Moral distress among caregivers and staff
- Advanced care planning
- Voluntary Assisted Dying Legislation
- Gerontological Nursing in Primary Care and Rural/Remote Settings
- Principles of primary care and community engagement
- Preventive health and chronic disease management
- Access, equity and cultural safety
- Scope of practice and autonomy in rural nursing
- Leadership, Wellbeing and Self Care in Advanced Surgical Practice
- Leadership and mentorship in APN roles
- Clinical decision-making and autonomy
- Recognising burnout and compassion fatigue
- Impact on clinical decision-making and patient safety
- Strategies for resilience, peer support, and reflective practice
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy uses two scaffolded written assignments to develop advanced clinical reasoning, interprofessional collaboration and shared decision‑making, ethical analysis, leadership, and evidence‑based practice in surgical nursing. Assessment Task 1 introduces critical analysis through an ethical dilemma, requiring students to apply collaborative and shared decision‑making principles to deliver culturally responsive, people‑ and family‑centred care. This task strengthens high‑level ethical reasoning and the ability to inform context‑responsive solutions to complex care needs.
The second assessment task requires students to provide a comprehensive case analysis that integrates advanced knowledge, critical evaluation of evidence, and justification of leadership actions in complex clinical contexts. Students apply research to inform context‑responsive, evidence‑based interventions and articulate the advanced clinical nurse’s role in advocating for safe, ethical practice.
The scaffolded approach reflects AQF Level 8 expectations by emphasising synthesis of theory and practice, autonomy in clinical decision‑making, and scholarly engagement with complex healthcare challenges. To pass the unit, students must demonstrate achievement of every unit learning outcome and obtain a minimum mark of 50% in graded units.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1: Written Assignment This asses...
Assessment Task 1: Written Assignment
This assessment involves analysing a real-world case with an ethical dilemma. Critically examine clinical practices, ethical principles, and interprofessional collaboration. Evaluate the shared decision-making process and whether culturally safe, equitable, people- and family-centred outcomes were achieved.
30%
Assessment Task 2: Written Assignment This wri...
Assessment Task 2:
Written Assignment
This written case study involves analysing the care of a complex patient with a variation in health status. It assesses the ability to critically evaluate literature, analyse and justify the advanced practice nurse’s role in harm minimisation, quality and safety, propose evidence-based, culturally responsive interventions aligned with people-centred care and shared decision-making.
70%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This online unit adopts active learning strategies to support students in developing advanced clinical reasoning, ethical decision-making, and evidence-based practice. Learning activities are designed to reflect the complexity of real-world healthcare environments, including primary care and rural/remote contexts, where adaptability and autonomy are essential. Students will engage with culturally safe, equitable, and people-centred care through structured online discussions and reflective activities. The unit highlights the surgical specialist nurse’s role in interprofessional collaboration, risk assessment, harm mitigation, and leadership in evidence-informed practice, aligned with the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards. The flexible delivery model ensures accessibility for working professionals while providing expert academic support. Collaborative online discussions foster shared learning, professional networking, and the development of a forward-thinking, people-centred nursing practice.