Just how do we find preceptors?

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How have you all had most success finding preceptors? I have networked with other NP's/student NP's I know, I have contacted state NP association, I have e-mailed and cold called clinics, and I still have nothing. My school would like me to find someone by June so they have the summer to get the provider approved and paperwork done, so I am starting to freak out.

So how did ya'll do it?

Specializes in FNP.

When I was in school, I literally sent out over 200 letters each semester, I felt like I was pimping myself out to get a preceptor. I would google NP in whatever speciality I needed and just send letters to EVERYONE the call them, but the best advise is to go in person, it is much harder to say no in person, and ask your school for previous students emails, I will precept for my school and even sent them my information so I can take their students.

Just remember that the school needs you to finish and will in the end help you if you cant find anyone, their numbers will look bad if they lose students, they might not have preceptors for every student but if you get stuck they always find you somewhere in the end.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

There is nothing wrong with finding your own preceptor.

We are all nurses who know nurses who know nurses and even physicians for that matter.

From the perspective of someone who both went through a NP program and now precepts several students a year, there is much wrong with students finding their own preceptors. My facility has now stopped taking students from all but three local brick-and-mortar programs; this is because between the physician, one other NP, and myself we had over sixty (63 to be exact) phones calls, letters, and emails looking for placements just for this summer semester. There are now headhunting agencies that try and find preceptors for profit. There are students so desperate to find spots they take poor quality placements.

As to your point about everyone being a nurse and knowing other nurses and docs, that's not quite true for many NP students. It's great if you do but I would venture that many don't know enough NPs and docs to have a full complement of placements in the required areas of distribution. Even if you happen to know the exact people you need, you then need to hope their facility will allow them to take you as a student and your schedule matches. On top of that, a fair percentage of students have no nursing experience.

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Programs not supplying the clinical training is a huge problem. Where is the quality control? How does the university even know if you learned anything or if your preceptor could teach? Just because someone is licensed does not make them a capable preceptor. As a student, you're clearly not in the position to evaluate whether or not your preceptor is any good, that's the job of your school. I can't believe NP schools get away with not providing the clinical training of their students. This does not happen in medicine or PA training.

I'd like to precept when I graduate, but only for students in the local schools. Students should think long and hard before choosing a program because it is online, flexible, or whatever. Buyer beware. Hopefully this problem will eventually dissuade people from choosing programs that don't provide preceptors and put pressure on NP programs to stop farming out what is arguably the most important aspect of NP education.

Honestly, opening up an online NP program that farms out its clinical sites must be a huge cash cow. What does the tuition even pay f0r?

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Programs not supplying the clinical training is a huge problem. Where is the quality control? How does the university even know if you learned anything or if your preceptor could teach? As a student, you're clearly not in the position to evaluate whether or not your preceptor is any good, that's the job of your school. I can't believe NP schools get away with not providing the clinical training of their students. This does not happen in medicine or PA training.

I'd like to precept when I graduate, but only for students in the local schools.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing with you guys. I completely agree that students finding their own preceptors is a huge problem. However, it's not simply a matter of local vs. distance programs.

With my program, in finding a preceptor, there are huge hoops to jump through (before and during the actual rotation). There are only certain clinical sites that can be approved within each area. My potential preceptors have to send a resume, education, 2 letters of reference, prior preceptor experience, etc. During the clinical rotation, the student is taking a concurrent course, and has to log onto a program to document case studies and clinical experiences. The preceptor also has to log-in and approve all of the clinical hours and case studies logged by the student.

I would imagine if you examine the processes of both online and local universities, the actual day to day of clinical training would be very similar.

As I mentioned before, our largest local University requires students to find preceptors.

Believe me, I'm frustrated. I had no idea it would be this difficult.

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I'm in my final year of my NP program. My school does not assist with finding a preceptor. I never thought to ask when I enrolled. I enrolled into a local university thinking that they would be assisting me in finding local preceptors. If I had it all to do over, I would have done more investigating about NP programs or gone into a PA program. Not all nurses have a network of physicians or NPs to call upon. I have never worked in the local hospitals and have no connection to local physicians.

I am having a great deal of difficulty this semester with finding a preceptor. I will have to ask for assistance from my school. Hopefully, I'll receive some. However even when I am able to get a preceptor quickly, I remain concerned about the quality of my education because I find myself taking what I can get. I feel like I'm paying a great deal of money for no assistance and little education.

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Specializes in Home Health, Podiatry, Neurology, Case Mgmt.

One suggestion, although I'm not even in NP school yet...why not start with your own family physician for help? I know I asked mine and he said when the time comes to let him know, he has a list of people to introduce me to and set me up with. I can imagine the struggle to find a preceptor, but that's at least one thought!

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Specializes in Functional Medicine, Holistic Nutrition.

I would never feel comfortable asking my family physician to help with a preceptor placement. It's embarrassing that this is happening in the NP field and it gives physicians a legitimate reason to question the quality of care provided by NPs. This is why I advocate for limiting online NP programs. I understand it is also happening with brick and mortar schools, but only because there is so much competition and because a precedent has now been set and students are buying into it. In order for the NP profession to be successful long-term, we need to take some lessons from physicians. They very carefully limit entry into the field.

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Specializes in Emergency.

I'm not sure I agree with that HealthyNurse. First, the whole argument that it's bad that nursing allows/requires [many] students to find their own preceptors, as if this is a bad thing. I live in a rural area. If I wasn't allowed to take my didactic classes online and find my own preceptors, then I would not be able to go to NP school. If I lived in a more urban area with a local school I could go to a local NP/PA program and this wouldn't be an issue, but the closest NP (or PA for that matter) program is four hours away and I could not afford the commute and second home on top of the tuition costs. I would be stuck, unable to further my education.

Second, acting like this is strictly a NP thing is wrong.

I will agree that if the school does not have oversight (which mine does), then the quality of the clinicals could be brought into question, but that doesn't mean that having students find clinicals is necessarily a bad thing, it means that the clinicals that the student finds need to be vetted and managed by the program.

Finally, I've seen several posts where we act like this isn't an option in other types of programs (PA, MD, etc), which it is. I know of several MD and PA who found their own placements for 'clinicals', took them to the school and got approval for doing that clinical outside of the school established sites. I'm sure the schools had their own process for approving these sites, I don't know the specifics of that process, but I'm sure it's thorough, as is my schools process for vetting my sites.

So based on that, I would feel comfortable (and have) asked several providers I know through my work about doing some of my clinicals with them or if they have suggestions on whom I should do clinicals with. None have taken it negatively that I asked them, and none have acted like it was a bad thing that NP programs place this burden on their students. All of them have considered the question and put thought into their answer. Several of the MDs have wanted to precept me more than my program will allow. Several have questioned why I can't be precepted by a PA. For the most part, all of them see me as someone who will be a colleague of theirs in the future and as such want to help me to be the best provider I can be so that they will have strong colleagues.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

You make several good points, but ask yourself if you have really evaluated this issue objectively or whether your subjective position has influenced your stance on the issue. I choose to look at the data we have instead of a "why not" approach to the issue.

Research has demonstrated that quality clinical preceptorships are associated with improved NP role socialization. Research has also shown that online format and hybrid format didactic education is not grossly inferior to traditional education when properly administered.

I have never heard of MDs "finding their own" placements. I was under the impression that both MDs and DOs needed to attend established and accredited residency programs. In my opinion NPs should never be placed with PAs for clinic.

The larger problem, from my perspective as an NP, is protecting NP practice. The "explosion" in the number of online (and to lesser extent b&m) programs moves is further from standardizing NP education. My biggest concern is new online programs, those that are not offered from schools with a long history of NP education.

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Specializes in Emergency.

BostonFNP,

I completly agree that quality clinical preceptors settings are vital, I'm sorry if my post didn't make that clear. I would strongly advocate for whomever is researching programs that they spend much of their research time finding programs that have detailed answers to how they approve and monitor clinical sites and preceptor/student activity. I know it was one of the top criteria for my selection process when I researched my program.

I don't know how other programs do it, but my school has staff members (APRN in the appropriate field) assigned to each region (usually state) to work full time monitoring the student's progress. They have a completely different set of staff members working full time to help the student in the selection and vetting of the site and the preceptor, and it is by no means a token process. It is rigorous and detailed process that is taken seriously.

While I agree that if a program does not have these checks in place, the quality of the clinical sites and preceptors can vary wildly, I would expect that to be a problem irregardless of if the program was a distance program or a brick and mortar program.

I have also heard people claim that if the program is online, then the didactic is meaningless because the student's cheat on the tests. Now, I will grant you that there are probably online didactic programs where students do cheat alot.

Now, is there a way to cheat? Probably, is there a way to cheat in a classroom, absolutely. Do people try to cheat in both environments, sure they do. Do they get caught? some do, and some don't. I hope they all do eventually. But, I don't think that online didactic program = cheating or bad quality clinicals. It could if the program is not well managed, but so could a B&M program that is not well managed.

You mentioned earlier that you only accept students from three B&M programs, why those three particular programs? What sets them and their students apart from the other programs and their students? I'm not trying to pin you down, or argue with you, I'm truly curious as to what makes them different.

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Specializes in Home Health, Podiatry, Neurology, Case Mgmt.

From my research a lot of these programs do not have nor administer tests, they are based more on research and scholarly writing. I know for EC (granted this is for my BSN, not MSN), we have to submit our papers to turnitin.com and it can't come back more than 2% in any one area matching, nor more than 15% for the entire paper as a whole. That is one way to keep the plagiarism down at least. The exams I have taken before online for my gen eds were all timed tests, so even if I wanted to look up answers in the book I couldn't because I didn't have enough time. Many students in a B&M school "cheat" but really if they are cheating do you think they would even pass the certification exam then? I would hope not! =) I think with all the technology nowadays, we are going to continue seeing many more "online" programs. Heck my husband is a retired vet and he has been looking for an entire AS or BS degree online and we have found many from reputable schools in fact! The clinical portion I think is the biggest thing. everything should be vetted according to a set standard as that is where students put the theory into practice.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
BostonFNP I completly agree that quality clinical preceptors settings are vital, I'm sorry if my post didn't make that clear. I would strongly advocate for whomever is researching programs that they spend much of their research time finding programs that have detailed answers to how they approve and monitor clinical sites and preceptor/student activity. I know it was one of the top criteria for my selection process when I researched my program. I don't know how other programs do it, but my school has staff members (APRN in the appropriate field) assigned to each region (usually state) to work full time monitoring the student's progress. They have a completely different set of staff members working full time to help the student in the selection and vetting of the site and the preceptor, and it is by no means a token process. It is rigorous and detailed process that is taken seriously. While I agree that if a program does not have these checks in place, the quality of the clinical sites and preceptors can vary wildly, I would expect that to be a problem irregardless of if the program was a distance program or a brick and mortar program. I have also heard people claim that if the program is online, then the didactic is meaningless because the student's cheat on the tests. Now, I will grant you that there are probably online didactic programs where students do cheat alot. Now, is there a way to cheat? Probably, is there a way to cheat in a classroom, absolutely. Do people try to cheat in both environments, sure they do. Do they get caught? some do, and some don't. I hope they all do eventually. But, I don't think that online didactic program = cheating or bad quality clinicals. It could if the program is not well managed, but so could a B&M program that is not well managed. You mentioned earlier that you only accept students from three B&M programs, why those three particular programs? What sets them and their students apart from the other programs and their students? I'm not trying to pin you down, or argue with you, I'm truly curious as to what makes them different.[/quote']

Well the "cheating" aspect is easily solved: move NP towards annual standardized tests like medical education. That would be a great thing but is a ways off at best.

As far as why we only accept students from three local programs (one of which now is online and another hybrid) is that they have a long history of producing prepared and competent students, plain and simple. It's not that other programs don't have fantastic students but we have had some issues with students from other programs (one of which is a local B&M). As far as not taking students from online programs, we have made two exceptions for current RNs at our local hospital and it was 50/50 but that could be student or program or both. We do like to support the local programs that have supported us.

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