Finding Preceptors

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Looking for advice on how to find preceptors...

Im currently an FNP student at a nursing school in the Boston area that does not help you find preceptors. While it is only April, I am very much stressing about this. We are supposed to start our clinical hours in September. Given the high saturation of students the few spots I know of are already taken. I am not originally from the area so I also do not have many personal connections to take advantage of. I have a car so I do not mind driving a little ways out (which is what I am assuming I will have to do), but how do I find these places. I asked one of the advisors at my school how they recommend I find these people and they suggested I drive around my neighborhood and just walk-in to offices with resume in hand and ask if they'll precept me???? This seems crazy to me and a sure fire way of how to NOT get a preceptor. Any and all suggestions would be very helpful; feeling like I'm going to flunk out due to no clinical hours.

TL;DR: clinical are supposed to start in fall, I have no preceptors and am stressing it real bad

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I am in the same place right now, in Utah however. I have called about a dozen clinics and left emails and am having no luck either. I know that more then half my class is also having issues, the other half NP's from their work has taken them on. Good luck!

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Specializes in Obstetrics.

CCNE made a policy change effective this year called the Sawyer initiative that states CCNE accredited schools MUST place you.

Https://www.aacnnursing.org/portals/42/CCNE/PDF/summary-major-revisions-to-2018-standards.pdf

As someone in another thread posted you can reach out to CCNE directly and they will send you a letter to give to your school. If schools don't comply they can lose accreditation. If CCNE doesn't respond you can write to them stating if appropriate action isn't taken against the school you will file a complaint against their accreditation with DOE(dept of education) who authorizes them, and could jeapordize them.

If enough people share this stuff and start to take action things will change.

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thank you for your reply @preciouspkgs! I went to the CCNE website and it looks like the program I am in is NOT accredited.

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I've had an insane amount of difficulty finding Preceptors for my clinical hours as well. I used to live in the Boston Area and moved to CT this year. I used a service to find my adult health clinical site and luckily they found one. I am now going into Women's Health and Peds and the struggle intensifies. I have contacted over 50 locations will all saying that they have students or are already affiliated with other schools. The services have had no luck or ultimately ghost me due to lack of sites. The clincher is I've been in contact with my advisor at school about my difficulties and she finally gave me their clinical coordinater who gave me a website that lists practices in my are but that has also been unfruitful. My advisor is now telling me that if I can't find a clinical site I would have to take a leave of absence or change majors. My school is CNEE accredited so I've contacted them because this is unacceptable.

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Specializes in Psych/Mental Health.
On 4/15/2019 at 8:49 AM, eternalstudent328 said:

thank you for your reply @preciouspkgs! I went to the CCNE website and it looks like the program I am in is NOT accredited.

This is likely because your program is accredited by ACEN. Unfortunately, you really have no options to file complaints because securing preceptors is not a requirement for NP programs to gain ACEN accreditation.

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thanks for the reply and insight @umbdude. I definitely did not know that ? I guess I will keep trying and hoping it comes together for me

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Sorry for resurrecting this thread, but I wanted to say a few things. A huge thank you to preciouspkgs for your post on the CCNE accreditation. My NP program is CCNE accredited, and I have to admit that I am not pleased at how unsupportive I feel they have been in clinical placements. One of the program coordinators sent me an Excel spreadsheet of sites statewide that have affiliation agreements with my school. However, many of the preceptors listed either don't work there anymore, or don't accept students from my program because they have an institutional affiliation with a nearby program ? I don't think it's a bait-and-switch per se, since I understand that we are to find preceptors on our own. What grinds my gears is that the semester's started this week, and our program hasn't really communicated with us in advance about finding preceptors last semester ahead of time, or anything like that. At the beginning of the spring semester, we did get a message that essentially said, "Don't worry about it now, just focus on getting through this semester, we'll give you more information as the semester progresses" (They didn't), and now I haven't been sleeping well at all these past two or three nights because I am effectively stuck at work 8 am to 5 pm and having to call through the Excel spreadsheet during my work hours. It's just bothering me at the back of my mind that time's passing by and I don't have a preceptor yet. :( Not sure what I'll do if I don't find one, but I suppose I'll cross that bridge later on.

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I'm also in the Boston area. Today, I spent three hours visiting six urgent care sites. I have my fingers crossed, but I'm worried about finding a clinical location for the August 26th start date of my semester. I had quite a few no's today as well as "talk to the manager." I brought in my resume with a cover sheet explaining my goals. I'm going to start sending emails tomorrow.

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Specializes in Psych/Mental Health.

Boston area is tough. Most of the preceptors around the city take students from several locally known NP programs. You might want to consider more rural urgent centers an hour or two outside of the city.

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Specializes in Family.

Talk to your nursing friends and get the word out there. I called 55 places and got no replies..

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Consider reaching out to your state Nursing Association as well as the state Nurse Practitioner Association (most states have one now)... join these associations - especially if they have student rates...

I emailed some of the officers of both associations and they were very helpful in connecting me with people that were either willing to precept or connect me with additional leads.

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