NP schools now required to find clinical sites?

Nursing Students NP Students

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We did it! | Sawyer Initiative

Apparently, this just happened. I look at it on the CCNE website as well. Any thoughts? I feel like this should have been the standard all along.

I know 3 male NP students who had to drop out as they couldn't beg their way into a woman's health clinical site. I know others that had to drop not being able to get into peds rotation as well. It's a shame what np clinical placement has become. Cold call, beg, or pay and hope.

Yeah. Its not wonder doctors are pushing so hard against NPs having independent practice. I almost don't blame them. I wish that all NP programs were modeled like CRNA programs.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I know 3 male NP students who had to drop out as they couldn't beg their way into a woman's health clinical site. I know others that had to drop not being able to get into peds rotation as well. It's a shame what np clinical placement has become. Cold call, beg, or pay and hope.

I agree however and somewhat OT but in my opinion, which I know is not shared by many, if said students were seasoned RNs they would have planned and networked to secure sites prior to jumping into a program that they knew didn't provide preceptors. The other benefit from being in the field before 1 pharm course gives us prescribing rights is knowing which providers are good and therefore a person you want to learn from because there is a huge variation in skill set for NPs and also MDs. Just something for future students to consider before coughing up mega bucks regardless of if a school provides preceptors or not.

I agree. Networking is everything.

This is huge, if enforced.

I agree however and somewhat OT but in my opinion, which I know is not shared by many, if said students were seasoned RNs they would have planned and networked to secure sites prior to jumping into a program that they knew didn't provide preceptors. The other benefit from being in the field before 1 pharm course gives us prescribing rights is knowing which providers are good and therefore a person you want to learn from because there is a huge variation in skill set for NPs and also MDs. Just something for future students to consider before coughing up mega bucks regardless of if a school provides preceptors or not.

I agree, don't jump in if you don't have a network to help you find the required rotations and find quality rotations at that. Coming into this as a second career (still haven't finished school yet) I've concluded that I can't gamble my future on a stalled rotation at the Master's level. This might change that, but then I've waited this long to do this. I can wait and see, get experience, network and evaluate when this policy is more mature.

I really hope this is enforced. I'm tired of the NP profession looking like a bunch of jokers with our abysmal educational process.

I'm so glad this law is going into effect. There have been so many online RN and online NP schools turning out new grads without any oversight or accountability. This makes the hard working students who put on their time, money and effort look bad.

I haven't applied to any FNP program yet. My question is, can my preceptor (NP, MD) be from the hospital I work at? I don't understand why RNs are looking for preceptors when they work in the hospital/clinics with MDs and NPs.

So is it not allowed for your clinical site to be your place of employment? Just curious.

I haven't applied to any FNP program yet. My question is, can my preceptor (NP, MD) be from the hospital I work at? I don't understand why RNs are looking for preceptors when they work in the hospital/clinics with MDs and NPs.

So is it not allowed for your clinical site to be your place of employment? Just curious.

Many FNP programs will not allow their students to rotate within the hospital setting. My program did not allow FNP students in the hospital at all, and the ACNPs could only do a small fraction of our hours in an outpatient setting during our surgical rotation. Make sure you ask your program before assuming.

I haven't applied to any FNP program yet. My question is, can my preceptor (NP, MD) be from the hospital I work at? I don't understand why RNs are looking for preceptors when they work in the hospital/clinics with MDs and NPs.

So is it not allowed for your clinical site to be your place of employment? Just curious.

At my school you can do clinicals at your place of employment it just can't be within the same unit. For example if you work in L&D and go back to become a CNM you can't do your clinicals there because you work there as an L&D nurse. However if you work in the ER you could do your clinicals as a CNM there because you'd be working in L&D not the ER as a student. It makes it difficult to ask MDs and NPs you work with at your job because most of the MDs and NPs you work with are on your unit and you can't do a clinical rotation on your unit. Also what a previous poster mentioned about not being able to do inpatient rotations as an FNP student and most RNs work inpatient so most of their contacts are inpatient providers as well.

Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

I'm able to do clinicals on the unit where I work (ICU), but I'm not allowed to have a preceptor who is a direct supervisor or manager, nor can I be the one who is a supervisor to that preceptor. Works out great because the MDs, NPs & PAs on our units are not part of ou r management structure, so my prof said no conflict of interest and I can use the contacts in my network as preceptors. Definitely depends on the policy at your school. However, when I do the FNP portion, I can only do outpatient setting with a limited amount of hospital rounding. For the ACNP portion, I have to do ER, ICU & other acute care units with limited outpatient/office hours.

Back to the topic: I'm glad to see that CCNE is moving towards requiring schools to provide support & assistance in clinicals. So many proprietary schools are making a huge profit off of NP students, yet provide ZERO assistance getting clinicals set up. I'd rather have a smaller cohort and pay a bit more to have my clinicals set up. I don't like having to ask if people are willing to precept me. I've been getting positive responses to the inquiries I've made, but we'll see if it's still so positive when it's time to put ink to paper and sign the contract for clinicals.

Specializes in lots of specialties.

There are multiple schools that are "Brick & Mortar" schools do not offer help with clinicals. Walden and Chamberlain will not be the only ones that will need help pulling this together

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