Deakin University
Master of Advanced Clinical Nursing (Intraoperative)
- Delivery: Online
- Study Level: Postgraduate
- Duration: 36 months
Advance your ability to promote patient safety, manage risk and deliver specialised nursing care throughout complex surgical procedures.
Course overview
Deakin University’s Master of Advanced Clinical Nursing with an Intraoperative specialisation is a customisable specialist degree designed to enhance your clinical decision-making, strengthen health service delivery and support improved patient outcomes. It prepares experienced registered nurses to provide advanced care during surgery and until patients are transferred to post-anaesthesia care.
You will learn to implement risk management strategies within the intraoperative environment while developing the specialised expertise required of circulating and instrument nurses. This includes maintaining safe conditions within the surgical space, monitoring patients, ensuring equipment functions safely and anticipating the instruments required during procedures.
Choose the Coursework Stream to broaden your advanced nursing expertise through further nursing and postgraduate electives or the Thesis Stream to undertake supervised research. Depending on the units completed, graduates may pursue intraoperative nursing, clinical education, specialist, management or research roles and may be eligible to seek nurse practitioner endorsement through the applicable pathway. The course is delivered online over three years part-time.
CSP Subsidised Fees Available
This program has a limited quota of Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP). The indicative CSP price is calculated based on first year fees for EFT. The actual fee may vary if there are choices in electives or majors.
Key facts
From $614 (CSP)
June, 2027
What you will study
To earn the Master of Advanced Clinical Nursing (Intraoperative), you must successfully complete units totalling 12 credit points, as detailed below. Unless otherwise noted, each course is worth 1 credit point.
You must complete the 4-credit-point Intraoperative specialisation and choose either the Coursework Stream or the Thesis Stream.
Core units
- Inquiry Into Specialty Nursing Practice
- Research in Nursing and Midwifery
- Advanced Concepts in Specialty Nursing Practice
Intraoperative specialisation
- Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning
- Core Principles of Intraoperative Nursing Care
- Principles of Complex Intraoperative Nursing Care
- Patient Safety and Risk Management
Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning and Patient Safety and Risk Management are required to qualify for the Intraoperative specialisation. These courses form part of the 4-credit-point specialisation and are not additional requirements beyond the 12 credit points required for the Master.
Course electives
Complete 3 credit points from the course elective list provided below.
Open electives
Complete 2 credit points from postgraduate level 7 electives available across Deakin University.
Entry requirements
Academic requirements
To be eligible for this course, applicants must meet all of the following requirements:
- Hold current registration as a registered nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, with no conditions or restrictions.
- Have at least 24 months of clinical experience in intraoperative nursing practice in Australia, or part-time equivalent.
- Provide evidence of current employment in intraoperative nursing or an equivalent specialty practice area.
- Have independently secured ongoing employment for at least 24 hours per week in intraoperative nursing at a collaborating hospital in Australia.
- Have access to a suitable workplace that can support the required learning, clinical skills development and assessment activities.
Selection also considers academic merit, work experience, likelihood of success, availability of places, participation and regulatory requirements and individual circumstances. Meeting the minimum academic and English language requirements does not guarantee admission.
Supporting documents
Applicants must provide evidence of:
- Current registration as a registered nurse.
- At least 24 months of clinical experience in intraoperative nursing practice in Australia, or part-time equivalent.
- Current employment for at least 24 hours per week in intraoperative nursing at a collaborating hospital in Australia.
- Access to a suitable workplace that can support the course’s learning and assessment requirements.
Additional documents may be requested during the application process.
English language requirements
Applicants must provide evidence of at least one of the following:
- A bachelor’s degree completed in a recognised English-speaking country.
- An IELTS overall score of 6.5, with no individual band score below 6.0, or an accepted equivalent.
- Other accepted evidence of English language proficiency.
Contact the university for further information.
Recognition of Prior Learning
You may be eligible for recognition of prior learning if you have previously studied or have relevant work experience. This will help reduce the number of units you need to study to finish your course. Contact the university for more information.
Outcomes
Learning outcomes
- Demonstrate expert specialty clinical practice informed by nursing theory, evidence-based practice and person-centred care.
- Apply expert communication skills to support the delivery of safe, high-quality nursing care in specialty practice settings.
- Use digital technologies to evaluate and communicate complex specialty-care information to patients and multidisciplinary teams.
- Analyse and evaluate complex data from multiple sources to inform clinical decision-making in specialty practice.
- Apply expert nursing knowledge to complex clinical problems and support improved patient outcomes.
- Demonstrate professionalism, accountability, reflection and professional autonomy as an expert specialist nurse.
- Establish and lead inclusive, collaborative relationships across multidisciplinary teams.
- Apply ethical principles and expert professional judgement across diverse social, cultural and environmental contexts.
Career outcomes
The Master of Advanced Clinical Nursing with an Intraoperative specialisation prepares graduates to pursue advanced clinical, education, management and research opportunities within surgical and intraoperative environments.
Depending on the units completed and their professional experience, graduates may pursue roles such as:
- Circulating nurse
- Instrument nurse
- Clinical nurse specialist
- Clinical nurse educator
- Associate or unit manager
- Research roles
Fees and CSP
Indicative annual fee in 2027: $4,908 (Commonwealth Supported Place)
Indicative annual fee in 2027: $29,400 (Full-fee paying place)
Indicative annual fees are based on your first year of study.
A student’s annual fee may vary by:
- The number of units studied.
- Choice of units.
- Credit from previous study or work experience.
- Eligibility for government-funded loans.
Student fees shown are subject to change. Contact the university directly to confirm.
Commonwealth Supported Places
The Australian Government allocates a certain number of CSPs to the universities each year, which are then distributed to students based on merit.
If you're a Commonwealth Supported Student (CSS), you'll only need to pay a portion of your tuition fees. This is known as the student contribution amount – the balance once the government subsidy is applied. This means your costs are much lower.
Limited CSP spaces are offered to students enrolled in selected postgraduate courses.
Your student contribution amount is:
- Calculated per the course you're enrolled in.
- Dependent on the study areas they relate to.
- Reviewed and adjusted each year.
Student fees shown are subject to change. Contact the university directly to confirm.
HECS-HELP loans are available to CSP students to pay the student contribution amount.
FEE-HELP loans are available to assist eligible full-fee-paying domestic students with the cost of a university course.