Unit rationale, description and aim
Perioperative nursing requires advanced clinical expertise, critical thinking, and ethical decision-making to provide safe, high-quality care in complex surgical environments. This unit equips students with the knowledge and skills necessary to deliver culturally responsive, equitable, and people- and family-centred care in diverse perioperative settings.
Students will critically apply principles of interprofessional collaboration and shared decision-making to optimise outcomes for patients and families. They will evaluate complex ethical dilemmas, contemporary practices, and emerging evidence to develop context-responsive solutions for challenges in perioperative care. Emphasis is placed on reflective practice, fostering the specialist perioperative nurse’s capacity to lead evidence-based initiatives, uphold professional standards, and advocate for safe and ethical care in dynamic clinical environments.
The aim of this unit is to enable students to integrate advanced perioperative nursing knowledge, ethical reasoning, and critical evaluation to deliver evidence-based, people-centred care. On completion of the unit, graduates will be prepared to lead practice improvements, enhance patient outcomes, and contribute effectively to multidisciplinary teams in perioperative settings.
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 Perioperative Nursing Practice
- Introduction to Advanced Practice Nursing (APN)
- Role of the specialist perioperative nurse
- 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 Perioperative Nursing
- 5As of EBP
- Translating evidence into practice
- Barriers and enablers in integrating evidence into practice
- Critical appraisal
- Ethical practice in the Perioperative Setting
- Health professionals’ codes of professional conduct
- Health professionals’ codes of ethical conduct
- Key ethical issues in perioperative care & ethical decision-making
- Informed consent
- Confidentiality
- End-of-life decisions
- Cultural safety
- Truth telling
- Professional boundaries
- Clinical Governance and harm mitigation in Perioperative Care
- 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
- Specialty nursing care for complex and or diverse perioperative presentation
- Paediatric
- Geriatric
- Obstetric
- Bariatric
- Neurodiverse
- Gender diverse
- Day surgery and laparoscopic procedures
- Overview of scope
- Benefits and challenges
- Laparoscopic surgery principles
- Pre/post op nursing considerations
- End of life Care & Bereavement in Perioperative Nursing
- Ethical, physical, psychological and psychosocial impacts
- People/family centred care
- Cultural competency/linguistically diverse patients
- Moral distress among caregivers and staff
- Leadership, Wellbeing and Self Care in Advanced Perioperative 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 perioperative 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 perioperative 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 perioperative 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, 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 specialist perioperative 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, ACORN standards and ANZCA framework. 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.