APRN students require specialized clinical placements to gain clinical skills as a nurse practitioner. Securing placements is a collaborative effort between students, faculty, and our Clinical Placement Team. We encourage all students to develop a list of sites that they may be knowledgeable of or reach out to personal networks and connections that may be available to precept. If any clinical site is arranged by the Specialty Director and placement office but is declined by the student, this will result in an interruption of the plan of study and the placement office and Specialty Director will not seek a substitute rotation for the semester. Students who have declined their clinical placement will need to request a leave of absence until the course is offered again.
As an APRN student, you have the opportunity to complete your clinical education near your home and may identify preferred clinical sites and preceptors in accordance with program standards. Please note that you have an active and required role in securing your clinical placements, with support from the Clinical Placement Team.
Given the large number of health profession students in the Atlanta Metro Region and the competition for sites, agencies and providers, we ask that all local student placements be coordinated with our clinical placement team. Students are not authorized to reach out independently to the placement offices at these facilities: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Community Advanced Practice, Emory Healthcare, Grady, MedLink, Northside, Peachtree Immediate Care, WellStar, and Winship Cancer Institute. You can, however, reach out directly to the preceptors at those facilities, excluding Emory Healthcare. Please connect with your Clinical Placement Specialist for further instructions.
When securing a site/preceptor, the following steps should be followed:
Finding your preceptor
- Step 1 – Review the current guidelines for your specialty.
- Step 2 – If you have a preceptor, review the affiliation agreement to verify whether an agreement (contract) is already on file for that preceptor’s site. Active Agreement Search
- Step 3 – If you do not have a preceptor and need ideas, review the Active Agreement Search to explore existing site contracts. From there, you may look for potential preceptors online using personal network, social media such as Google, LinkedIn, or other platforms, or use one of our preferred third‑party vendors.
- Step 4 – If an active affiliation agreement is not found for your desired preceptor, submit the information through the ELMS tool (for currently enrolled students) using the Clinical Tracking Form for Special Director (SD) Approval. Please include your preceptor’s CV.
- Step 5 – Once you receive SD approval, your Clinical Placement Specialist will proceed with affiliation agreement processing (if needed), credentialing clearance, and updating your schedule.
- Step 6 - If despite all efforts in securing a preceptor, and the team has exhausted all their viable options, the students may use third party placement agencies to secure preceptors and placements for a fee paid by the student directly to the third-party placement agency. The school can connect you with an agency if needed and will reimburse students for fees up to $1,000 per rotation.
Note: This does not include the Nell Fellows Program, CRNA, Perfusion, Nutrition, or any other scholar programs.
Specialty Guidelines
To learn more about your Specialty, please refer to the below guidelines
- Clinical Placement Guidelines AGNP-AC
- Clinical Placement Guidelines AGNP-PC
- Clinical Placement Guidelines FNP (DNP)
- Clinical Placement Guidelines FNP (MSN)
- Clinical Placement Guidelines FENP
- Clinical Placement Guidelines NNP
- Clinical Placement Guidelines PMHNP
- Clinical Placement Guidelines PNP-AC
- Clinical Placement Guidelines PNP-PC
- Clinical Placement Guidelines WHGRNP
You can visit the following programs for more information:
.svg)
