SopranoKris

We don't have assigned charge nurses at our hospital. If you've been on the unit at least a year and a nurse for at least 2 years, you're going to be asked to do charge. I prefer not to because a) you only get a measly $2/hr extra, b) there's always someone who isn't happy with the assignments you've made, no matter how fair you try to be, c) it's a headache trying to juggle calming down irate family members, explaining to the staffing office why you can't possibly take another patient on the unit, and still try to get all the paperwork completed. Not worth the hassle whatsoever.

I found my clinical sites with good old-fashioned leg work. I made a student resume and went to offices of the practices I knew had good reputations and asked to speak to the office manager. I got my sites set up easily that way. Put yourself forward and do it. You'll be surprised at what you can find.
If your school uses Typhon to log clinical encounters, you can go into Typhon and pull up all of the practices that your school already confirms. That's a good starting point because you have the name, address & telephone numbers of current practices/preceptors in your state.
You can also join your state's NP association. Most have a process in place for current NPs to offer their services as preceptors to students. A good way to network?

I did four 9-hour days per week until I had my 300 hours for the semester completed. Previous semester was 240 hours. I had to split it up according to my preceptor's availability. For example, my 60 OB/Gyn hours were done as 10-hour days twice a week for 3 weeks. the remaining 180 hours was done as two 9-hour days and one 6-hour day per week. You're really at the mercy of your preceptor's schedule and availability. Not all practitioners work 5 days per week.