Ontario Grade 12 TPJ4C Health Care (Grade 12, College Preparation)
Chapters: 4
1. A. Health Care Fundamentals
A1 Health Care Terminology · A2 The Immune System · A3 Pathology · A4 Disease Prevention and Treatment
- Health Care Basics: Vital Signs, Medical Terms and Care Skills – Health care is the work of keeping people well and looking after them when they are ill. Health workers use a shared medical language built from roots, prefixes and suffixes. They check four vital signs: temperature (normal about 36.5–37.5 °C), pulse (adult 60–100 beats per minute), breathing rate (adult 12–20 breaths per minute) and blood pressure (healthy below 120/80 mmHg). They use instruments such as thermometers, stethoscopes and BP cuffs, stop infection with hand hygiene and PPE, record and pass on information clearly and confidentially, and help people make healthy lifestyle choices.
- The Immune System: How Your Body Fights Germs – Germs (pathogens) cause infectious disease. The body has three lines of defence: barriers (skin, mucus, acid), a fast general (innate) response (inflammation, fever, phagocytes) and a slow, specific (adaptive) response (B cells make antibodies, T cells kill infected cells). Memory cells make the second attack fast. Vaccines create memory safely. Immunity can go wrong: allergy, autoimmune disease, immunodeficiency (e.g. HIV).
2. B. Health Care Skills
B1 Instruments, Equipment, and Materials · B2 Vital Signs · B3 Practices and Procedures · B4 Communication and Documentation
- Health Care Basics: Vital Signs, Medical Terms and Care Skills – Health care is the work of keeping people well and looking after them when they are ill. Health workers use a shared medical language built from roots, prefixes and suffixes. They check four vital signs: temperature (normal about 36.5–37.5 °C), pulse (adult 60–100 beats per minute), breathing rate (adult 12–20 breaths per minute) and blood pressure (healthy below 120/80 mmHg). They use instruments such as thermometers, stethoscopes and BP cuffs, stop infection with hand hygiene and PPE, record and pass on information clearly and confidentially, and help people make healthy lifestyle choices.
3. C. Health Care,the Environment, and Society
C1 Health Care and the Environment · C2 Health Care and Society
- Environmental Stewardship: Caring for the Planet as We Use Technology – Environmental stewardship means using the Earth's resources carefully so they last, and fixing harm where we can. Every product, from a phone to a hospital machine, has a life cycle: raw materials, making, transport, use and end of life. Each stage uses energy and makes waste. Good stewards keep products longer, choose efficient machines, follow the waste hierarchy (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, then dispose), send e-waste to proper recyclers and support laws and company practices that protect nature. Technology can harm the environment, but it can also help: solar panels, LEDs and smart sensors cut waste.
- Ethics: How to Decide What Is Right – Ethics (moral philosophy) asks what we ought to do and why. Values such as honesty, kindness, fairness and respect guide choices. Three main theories help: consequences (utilitarianism, Bentham and Mill: most good for most people), duty (Kant: act on rules you could want everyone to follow; treat people as ends, never only as means) and virtue (Aristotle: build good character; virtue is the mean between extremes). Conscience is our inner sense of right and wrong. Freedom brings responsibility. Meta-ethics asks what "good" means and whether values are universal or relative. Applied ethics deals with the environment, animals, work, friendship and peace.
4. D. Professional Practice and Career Opportunities
D1 Health and Safety · D2 Professional Standards · D3 Career Opportunities
- Health and Safety: Hazards, Risks and Controls – A hazard is anything that can cause harm. Risk is how likely the harm is and how bad it would be: risk = likelihood × severity. A risk assessment finds hazards, decides who could be harmed, rates the risk, adds controls and is reviewed. Use the hierarchy of control: eliminate, substitute, engineering controls, admin (rules, training, signs), then PPE last. Safety signs use colour and shape. Workshops, art rooms and workplaces need guards, ventilation, labelled materials, clear exits and first aid. Laws in most countries make employers and workers share the duty to stay safe.
- Rule of Law – The rule of law means everyone, including the government and its leaders, must follow the same known laws, which are applied equally by fair and independent courts. Its main principles are supremacy of law, equality before the law, clear and public laws, fair trials, protected rights and separation of powers. Laws are made and changed through an open process, can be reviewed by courts against a constitution or charter of rights, and countries also agree to international law through treaties.
- Career Planning: From Knowing Yourself to Your First Job – Career planning has five steps. 1) Know yourself: interests, skills and values. 2) Explore career families and find out the work, study needed, pay and demand. 3) Plan a pathway with SMART goals and a plan B. 4) Search for jobs with a CV, cover letter, digital portfolio and interview practice. 5) Make the move from school to work and keep learning, because careers change over a lifetime.