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Overview

Course Prescription

Develops understanding of anatomy and pathology as applied in Medical Imaging. Focuses on sectional imaging anatomy, normal variants and common pathologies as demonstrated on CT (computed tomography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and ultrasound images.

Course Overview

This course aims to provide students with a fundamental knowledge of sectional imaging appearances, as seen on a range of specialised imaging modalities. Students will apply their knowledge of anatomy and pathology to identify and describe basic normal and abnormal imaging appearances, learning appropriate terminology to communicate findings professionally. Learning activities and assessments are designed to support the development of clinical competency for Medical Imaging students. All other students will gain the same knowledge with the potential to apply this in their future careers. 

The course is delivered at Grafton campus, regularly utilising the Faculty of Medical and Health Science’s Medical Sciences Learning Centre (MSLC) and Human Anatomy Lab (HAL) for practical learning. The course incorporates a range of learning approaches including online videos, webpages, links to the library databases and resources, and online preparatory reading and learning tasks to supplement tutorials and labs. Academic learning is expected to inform clinical practice and enhance levels of clinical competency.

This course is compulsory for the BMedImag(Hons) programme.

Course Contacts

Course Director Dr Sibusiso Mdletshe Senior Lecturer Email: sibusiso.mdletshe@auckland.ac.nz Profile: https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/sibusiso-mdletshe
Course Coordinator Mr Seb BarfootProfessional Teaching Fellow Email: s.barfoot@auckland.ac.nz Profile: https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/people/s-barfoot

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 15 point course and students are expected to spend 10 hours per week involved in each 15 point course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect 30 hours of tutorial and/or labs, 20 hours of directed readings, videos and thinking about the content and 70 hours of work on assignments, self-directed learning and/or test preparation.

As a significant component of pre-clinical preparation and to facilitate clinical competency, attendance at all labs is mandatory. Assessments will be based on the learning and activities performed at these labs. Attendance records will be taken at each lab and students will be required to meet with the Course Coordinator to explain any absences. Failure to attend the laboratory sessions without valid reasons more than twice will automatically trigger the Medical Imaging Discipline’s ‘non-critical fitness to practice’ internal process.

Course Prerequisites, Corequisites and Restrictions

Prerequisite

Locations and Semesters Offered

LocationSemester
Grafton

Teaching and Learning

Campus Experience

Attendance is required at scheduled activities including labs/tutorials and lectures to complete components of the course.

Learning activities including tutorials/labs will not be available as recordings.

The course may include live online events including in the form of optional revision tutorials held weekly

Attendance on campus or online delivery for the exam will be subject to university guidelines.

The activities for the course are scheduled as a standard weekly timetable.

Learning Resources

Taught courses use a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas to provide students with learning materials including 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.

Additional Information on Learning Resources

Students will be able to access a large selection of online resources via the Philson Library databases.

Students will be provided with access to course materials from MEDIMAGE 201 and 203 from the beginning of the course. These are considered pre-requisite knowledge for this course and include worksheets and digital radiology presentations

An introductory H5P tutorial will be made available through Canvas from the beginning of the course to provide students the fundamental concepts and technical aspects of cross-sectional imaging modalities that they will need to understand and apply throughout the course

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.

Fitness To Practice

Fitness to practise (FTP)
As health professional students, in addition to meeting the University of Auckland graduate profile capabilities, students in the Medical Imaging programmes are required to demonstrate their fitness to practise. This applies to students at all times, whether they are on campus, on placement or elsewhere. Fitness to practise (FTP) is concerned primarily with patient and public safety. It also is concerned with upholding professional standards, including the relevant professional code of conduct, and contributing to the maintenance of the reputation of the profession and public confidence in the profession.
For further information visit FMHS Fitness to Practise Policy (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/the- university/how-university-works/policy-and-administration/teaching-and-learning/fmhs-code-of-fitness-to- practise/fmhs-fitness-to-practise-policy.html)

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 course assessment continues to meet the principles of the University’s assessment policy. Some adjustments may need to be made in emergencies. You will be kept fully informed by your course co-ordinator/director, and if disruption occurs you should refer to the university website for information about how to proceed.

Other Information

Communication All official communication to a student will be sent to the student’s current University email address (username@aucklanduni.ac.nz) and the student is responsible for ensuring that any desired forwarding to other addresses is in place and operating correctly. staff will not be responsible for any consequences if students fail to read and respond to University correspondence in a timely manner.
Students are encouraged to use the course ‘Discussion’ forum on Canvas as much as possible for communication with staff and other students. Email may be used for more private matters. Email communication to University staff and supervisors must be sent from the student’s University email address. As a general rule, students are advised to log-on at least twice a week. Logging on regularly allows regular checking of 'Announcements' as well as reading and engaging on relevant communication.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework 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. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed for potential plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct, using computerised detection mechanisms.

Similarly, research students must meet the University’s expectations of good research practice. This requires:

  • Honesty - in all aspects of research work
  • Accountability - in the conduct of research
  • Professional courtesy and fairness – in working with others
  • Good stewardship – on behalf of others
  • Transparency – of research process and presentation of results
  • Clarity - communication to be understandable, explainable and accessible

For more information on the University’s expectations of academic integrity, please see the Academic Conduct section of the University policy hub.

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about taught courses is made available to enrolled students in Canvas.

Students may be asked to submit assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. In exceptional circumstances changes to elements of this course may be necessary at short notice. Students enrolled in this course will be informed of any such changes and the reasons for them, as soon as possible, through Canvas.


Additional Information on Academic integrity

The way to avoid plagiarism is to reference your work. Please refer to the following website for further information about academic referencing: www.cite.auckland.ac.nz/
The document ‘Guidelines: Conduct of Coursework’ provides further advice on how to avoid plagiarism. It can be found in the ‘Medical Imaging Programme Information’ on Canvas.
The penalties for plagiarism can be severe, including losing some or all of the marks for the assignment. Major offences can be sent to the University’s Discipline Committee, where further penalties can be imposed.

Assessment and Learning Outcomes

Course Learning Outcomes

CLO #OutcomeProgramme Capability Link
1
2
3
4

Assessments

Assessment TypeAssessment PercentageAssessment Classification

Additional Information on Assessment

This course is 100% internally assessed. An aggregated mark of 50% or more is required to successfully pass this course. Resubmission of failed assessments is not permitted. In addition to achieving an overall pass mark, it is a requirement to attempt and submit all the assessments related to this course (as above).

Penalties for excessive word count and/or late submission (without prior written approval for an extension) will be applied in accordance with the 'Medical Imaging Assessment Requirements and Presentation Criteria' document.

Guidelines on the use of Gen-AI software to complete assessments in this course will be provided for each assessment.

The course Canvas page has more detailed information on assessment processes and requirements.

Assessment to CLO Mapping

Assessment Type1234

Student Feedback, Support and Charter

Student Feedback

Feedback on taught courses is gathered from students at the end of each semester through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions. Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students. In addition, class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Additional Information on Student Feedback

Student feedback is very important to the continuous development of this course and has driven many of the positive changes we have been able to make in our course offerings.

Students in previous years have regularly commented that it was sometimes hard to learn cross-sectional anatomy within the time given for the lab sessions. Unfortunately, this is a skill that requires practice and revision and this course is set up to provide plenty of time for self-directed learning of the content prior to the final exam. Students are expected to come prepared to class, having watched the suggested pre-lab videos or H5P tutorials, having revised the pre-requisite worksheets from MEDIMAGE 201 and 203 and, optionally, having attempted the worksheet for the lab at hand. Lab sessions are made more meaningful when this is the case as the student comes prepared with a base knowledge upon which we can build understanding and nuance. Staff are available to answer questions throughout the duration of the course via Piazza and a range of resources are suggested to students to help them practice interpreting cross-sectional imagery in their own time after the formal teaching sessions. Examinations require the application of knowledge and theory to novel situations. To address the difficulty of learning within the time constraints of formal sessions, additional weekly revision sessions are held online where students can raise specific questions or have their personal image annotations checked and evaluated. For 2025, the addition of official annotated image sets will be released to the class once after the submission of the oral presentation assignment. The decision to delay release of this new resource has been made to emphasise that students should be attempting to undertake this activity themselves first, seeking feedback if necessary, as this will more significantly benefit their learning and understanding of the content.

In HAL teaching sessions, students are expected to work in small groups using iPads to explore prescribed image sets. Due to increasing cohort size, in 2024 the number of iPads available was identified by students as insufficient to their ability to work effectively in class. We recognise that maintaining optimal group size per iPad is an important factor to the efficacy of learning in these labs and have consequently purchased additional devices for 2025 to improve the in-class experience.

Additionally, Pathology tutorials held in the MSLC were identified as being sub-optimal due to the lack of desks on which to place devices for note taking. The MSLC was originally chosen for these tutorials as it houses the university's pathology collection and is an inspiring space to learn in but we recognise that it is no as fit for purpose. Although some sessions will still take place in the MSLC due to timetabling restrictions in 2025, most have now been relocated to more appropriate classroom spaces.

In previous years, some students felt that the course started very quickly, with students expected to be able to read and interpret cross-sectional imaging in the very first lab session for which they had not actually received any formal training. To combat this, we created an interactive H5P tutorial to introduce the fundamental concepts of cross-sectional imaging modalities as well as some more technical specifics relating to the two main modalities that students will encounter within the course (CT and MRI). This was released two weeks ahead of the first HAL lab for students to complete in 2024. Consequently, students were much more confident and capable in 2024 engaging with class activities compared  to previous years.  The resource remained active for the duration of the course for students to refer to and revise from as necessary to maintain fundamental concepts from which the course content builds.

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.

Tuākana

Tuākana is a multi-faceted programme for Māori and Pacific students providing topic specific tutorials, one-on-one sessions, test and exam preparation and more. Explore your options at Tuakana Learning Communities.

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.

Wellbeing

We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - please see the Support Services page for information on support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed work 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. This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

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.

Student Academic Complaints and Disputes

Students with concerns about teaching including how a course is delivered, the resources provided, or supervision arrangements, have the right to express their concerns and seek resolution. The university encourages informal resolution where possible, as this is quicker and less stressful. For information on the informal and formal complaints processes, please refer to the Student Academic Complaints Statute in the Student Policies and Guidelines section of the Policy Hub.