NP clinical hours

NPinWCH · Jun 1, 2011

I'm a Family NP and my clinical hours were about that, sometimes a bit more, but I worked fulltime and went to school part time. The shift depends on the clinical site and your preceptor. My hours depended on how many I needed and how many days a week I could be with the preceptor. I worked Fri, Sat and Sun nights and then did clinicals Tues, Weds, Thurs and sometimes until noon on Fri.

If my preceptor did a 10 hr day and I could only do 6, that's what I did. I just let them know. Once I set a schedule I pretty much stuck to it for the semester. So it depends... Unless you are working weekends, you might have a hard time getting enough hrs in...unless you can do clinicals on the weekend, but for FNP that might be hard since primary care tends to be m-f.

Good luck

linearthinker, DNP, RN · Jun 2, 2011

My experience was similar. My preceptors provided me with days/times they were available, I coordinated their hours with my schedule as best fit with my family's needs, etc. I was easily able to do 200 hours a semester while working part-time. More than 200 clinic hours became quite tricky, but I have a busy family. I never tried to work FT. There just aren't enough hours in a day!

Annaiya, NP · Jun 2, 2011

One way to think about it is a semester is generally 15 weeks long, so 150 hours in one semester is about 10 hours a week, so 300 hours is going to be 20 hours a week. I believe that USA also does clinicals over the summer semester, so you have less time to get those hours in. Just like undergrad there is a lot of paperwork associated with clinicals (you have to log information on every patient you see) so the more hours you spend in clinical in a week the more time you need to dedicate during the week for homework. And you still have other homework and exams to study for. You can see how it quickly becomes impossible to work full-time at least some of the semesters. I have heard that if you want to try to work full-time then you will need a lot of PTO saved up, because that is the only way to possibly survive.

NPinWCH · Jun 4, 2011

One way to think about it is a semester is generally 15 weeks long, so 150 hours in one semester is about 10 hours a week, so 300 hours is going to be 20 hours a week. I believe that USA also does clinicals over the summer semester, so you have less time to get those hours in. Just like undergrad there is a lot of paperwork associated with clinicals (you have to log information on every patient you see) so the more hours you spend in clinical in a week the more time you need to dedicate during the week for homework. And you still have other homework and exams to study for. You can see how it quickly becomes impossible to work full-time at least some of the semesters. I have heard that if you want to try to work full-time then you will need a lot of PTO saved up, because that is the only way to possibly survive.

All good points, but I will point out that while the semester is about 15 weeks we usually didn't get clearance to start clinicals until after the semester started. Sometimes it wasn't until about the second or third week of classes, so that drops you down to anywhere from 12-14 weeks and then all of our clinical paperwork had to be in one week before the end of the semester as well. So take off 1 more week and you might be at 11-13 weeks to fit all your hours in.

Also, you may have to take into account, office holidays, meetings your preceptor may have and any time off for unexpected illness for you or your preceptor. One preceptor I had failed to tell me until 2 weeks before he left that he was going on vacation. I lost a whole week of clinical opportunity. I didn't usually have problems getting my hours in because I was at my clinical site WHENEVER I could be so I could get as much experience as possible. Most of the time I was over my hours, but that time with the vacation was tight.

I didn't use any PTO for school, but my manager was flexible with my schedule when I needed it (my seniority on the unit helped). One semester I switched to Sat, Sun, Mon nights so I could do clinical hours on Fridays and then another semester I moved to days and worked Weds, Sat, Sun. A couple of my preceptors worked 10 hour days, so that really helped me out too...I could basically get 20 hrs in 2 days.

My goal was usually 25-30 hours a week, and to count on 10 weeks to get all my hours in. I didn't always get that, but I tried. I will say that I was a mostly absent mother/wife during the semesters where I had 300 or more hrs of clinicals. Luckily, my husband and kids were able to step up and pick up my slack. We all knew it was temporary and that helped, but the kids tell me now how much they hated it. We made it through and so far, it was worth it, but it was very hard work.

eva34242 · Nov 4, 2011

I just accepted , staring spring 2011 at Univesity of south alabama, for their family NP program , I live in Florida, do I have to find my own preceptor? Or do they help you with that? please let me know, I have to know in advance. thanks

reebokHCFR, MSN, EMT-P, APRN, NP · May 17, 2013

evdnl: can you update us on your status and opinion of USA? I also live in Florida and am considering them.

phillycpnp-pc, MSN, RN, NP · May 18, 2013

I just had a clinical rotation in a peds ER and i did one 12 hour shift a week. I had to do 240 hours in one semester so i did 120 in this ER and 120 in primary care office ( 8 hours a weeK) and worked 24 hours a week. on weekends.