Precepting a Southeastern FNP or PMHNP student: what it involves

One course, one semester, one patient group

Southeastern's graduate NP students pick their own preceptors and take that choice to the faculty member teaching the course. Their master's program runs through the Intercollegiate Consortium for a Master of Science in Nursing, a four-university partnership, so the handbook they follow is the consortium's.

Each request covers one course, and every course names the patients it centers on, so a practice that suits one can be wrong for the next.

Post-master's PMHNP certificate students replace the third psychiatric course with NURS 6970, which carries 120 hours. On our own math (Southeastern prints no weekly figure), a 275-hour course in fall or spring works out to roughly two full clinic days a week, and the nine-week summer semester asks for more. Totals by program are in clinical hours.

Approval, and the agreement with your facility

Each preceptor needs approval from Southeastern's course faculty and a review by the graduate coordinator, both before any clinical time begins. Faculty also review, may revise, and then approve a student-preceptor letter of agreement carrying three signatures: yours, the student's and the faculty member's.

Your facility needs its own agreement as well, a contract or letter of agreement made at the university level and signed on behalf of your organization and of the College of Nursing. Louisiana requires these agreements to state each side's rights and responsibilities, liability insurance coverage included, and to contain a termination clause. The consortium handbook warns that a new one may take several weeks to months.

On file in the Graduate Nursing Office before day one

• Your CV, resume or completed professional profile, no older than two years
• The signed three-way letter of agreement
• A current agreement between the university and your facility
• The student's health, OSHA and HIPAA documentation

Clinical contracts explains how students check a facility's status.

Evaluations, and why yours counts

Under the consortium handbooks, evaluation flows three ways. You give input on the student's clinical performance through the term and complete the clinical evaluation form at the semester's end, using materials the faculty member supplies. The student rates you and the site every semester, and course faculty weigh your input when they assign the grade.

When performance becomes a worry, the faculty handbook asks preceptors to tell faculty immediately rather than save it for the final form. Southeastern keeps its MSN evaluation form inside the course, so ask the faculty member for a copy at the start.

Louisiana practice, and how our placement desk approaches you

Louisiana NPs who make medical diagnoses and manage treatment practice under a collaborative practice agreement with a physician, which is why AANP classes Louisiana as a reduced practice state. The student learns inside your practice under your guidance and signs no such agreement; Louisiana NP practice has the detail.

When our placement desk contacts you for a Southeastern student, we arrive with the specifics: the course, its hours and population, the semester dates and where the student lives. We ask whether you already have graduate students that term, collect your CV and the name of your facility's signer, and prepare the student for the faculty conversation. If you are willing to precept, use the form on this page.