Entry requirementsFor experienced critical care practitioners who wish to advance their clinical practice, develop their professional career and enhance their knowledge of research and evidence-based healthcare
Academic titleMSc, PG Dip, PG Cert Advanced Practice (Critical Care)
Course descriptionProgramme description
- Tuition from leading experts.
- Seminars and lectures given by leaders in healthcare from around the world.
- A multi-faculty environment providing interprofessional learning.
This pathway is designed for experienced critical care practitioners who wish to advance their clinical practice, develop their professional career and enhance their knowledge of research and evidence-based health care. The programme builds on your existing skills and experience to enable you to lead and support the development and subsequent delivery of evidence-based practice. It will enable you to develop a critical understanding of research methods and methodologies, use theoretical concepts from nursing and other disciplines to generate researchable questions focused around critical care, develop a scientific basis for examining critical care practice, use the skills of critical reflection, and understand the political context of healthcare and how it influences practice.
It is a suitable programme for practitioners from a wide variety of critical care areas, for example: accident and emergency departments; cardiac care areas; intensive care and high dependency units; liver units; renal units; perioperative departments; and neuroscience departments. Students undertake core modules in critical care, evidence-based practice and healthcare research. In addition students select options from a range of areas including:
- Advanced assessment skills
- Prescribing (for eligible practitioners)
- Clinical specialities
- Professional development and organisational change
- Leadership
- Health policy and NHS reform
- Neonatal Intensive care/enhanced practice
Other options from our BSc programme may also be available. Students who have already studied clinically focused modules at undergraduate or graduate level at King’s may be able to incorporate that study into this programme, subject to certain limits, provided that the credits have not already contributed to an award. Modules studied elsewhere may be incorporated through accreditation of prior certificated learning (subject to a successful accreditation claim).
Students progressing to the MSc undertake a substantial research or service development project relevant to their own area of practice.
Programme format and assessment
The majority of assessment is by coursework; some courses are also assessed by one examination.
Programme modules for MSc, PG Dip, PG Cert Advanced Practice (Critical Care)
Advanced Assessment Skills
This course combines skills development with theoretical and guided study to provide knowledge and skills for higher level clinical practice. Learning is facilitated through skills based workshops with demonstration followed by practice of history taking and clinical examination, lectures followed by discussion, and guided self study.
Critical Care ( Policy and Practice)
This course builds on your critical care experience and facilitates an appreciation of issues related to critical care services, policy and practice. The course provides opportunities for you to develop a critical understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of practice, health policy, health economics, ethics and current issues in practice. The course requires active participation from you with student-led seminars facilitating analysis of scenarios related to your own area of practice. Learning is facilitated through discussion, lecture, groupwork and individual tutorials. Summative assessment is one 5,000 word essay. Additionally you would normally be expected to have a minimum of 18 months critical care experience prior to commencing programme/course. Runs on one whole day per week from June to July, with 1 week Summer School.
Dissertation (Healthcare)
Project work continues for 12 months, with 30 days assigned for contact with academic staff. Additional time is needed for data collection during the course of the students work. The relevant interests and expertise of both students and supervisors determine the nature of projects. Careful design and measurement is emphasised. In addition to individual supervision, regular seminars and tutorials are offered to encourage and support students and these sessions are used by the students to present ideas for their projects and to facilitate discussion of problems encountered. A report of no more than 20,000 words must be submitted. It should include critical evaluation of the existing literature in the area and an appropriate presentation of the students work. Sucessful completion of taught MSc elements (postgraduate diploma) is a pre-requisite for this module.
Evidence-based Decision Making in Healthcare
This course aims to equip you with the skills and knowledge required to identify best evidence for your practice. It focuses on searching for, appraising and synthesising evidence from health care research. You are introduced to a range of electronic databases for accessing evidence and the principles of systematic review. Learning is facilitated through lectures, workshops and a student-directed search for evidence to address a question emerging from your own practice. Issues surrounding research implementation and evidence at the level of the individual practitioner and the health care organisation are addressed. Assessment is by means of a review of literature which answers a focussed question utilising explicit methods.
Issues in the Conduct of Healthcare Research
This course aims to raise awareness of issues that arise inthe conduct of research, from writing research proposals to the publication of findings. It will be useful for students embarking on a research or service development project, for new researchers wishing to develop their skills, and for healthcare professionals seeking to evaluate healthcare services. Issues covered in the course include gaining funding, managing research schedules, involving users in the research process, working with external agencies, addressing ethical and political issues in research, and managing aspects of the data collection process - for example overcoming poor response rates and managing group dynamics in focus group research. Learning is facilitated through lectures, recommended reading and seminars. The seminars provide a series of How to... sessions that facilitate application of concepts learnt during the Principal Methods for Healthcare Research course. For example: How to develop an interview schedule, or How to run a focus group. These seminars enable students to gain a practical understanding of the research process.
Principal Methods for Healthcare Research
This introductory course aims to provide students a broad knowledge of research approaches and techniques used in healthcare research. It intends to promote students understanding of, and enhance skills for critiquing research articles. Further it aims to promote the development of skills required to undertake a research-based project in the future. The course is essential for students who have not previously studied research methods or who would benefit from revision of this knowledge. It will consider philosophical bases for research, traditions and features of qualitative and quantitative research designs, data collection tools used in qualitative and qauntitative research and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. This course is a precursor for the second research methods course, Issues in the Conduct of Healthcare Research.
Theories & Perspectives in Healthcare
Students are introduced to the principles of scientific method and theory development. The course provides a critical overview of philosophical debates on social research. The contribution of disciplines such as psychology, sociology and biology to the understanding of nursing and midwifery is explored and a variety of topics and theories are presented by staff and students to demonstrate their application to health care. The processes of concept analysis and reflection in practice are examined. Nursing and midwifery philosophies and models are reviewed and evaluated in terms of their potential to generate research questions and for their application to the planning and delivery of care.