Nurse practitioner clinical education
Clinical placements can be difficult to manage when the time frame is very limited. Perhaps you still require 180 clinical hours and live far away from major medical centers. Or perhaps you just found out that your preceptor can no longer accept students.
In a 60 to 90 day period, it is not a matter of sending out numerous requests and waiting for responses. Rather, it involves developing a targeted emergency plan that a busy practitioner or clinic director can easily say yes to.
Complete Your Clinical Packet in Week One
Before reaching out to any clinicians or clinic managers, make sure you have all the necessary materials. You want to avoid having to ask questions and receive answers over the course of many days.
Have the following information available:
- Program, expected graduation date, and clinical semester
- Required clinical hours and the time frame in which they must be completed
- Clinical objectives and patient populations
- Availability per week, and willingness to complete evening/weekend hours
- Distance you are willing to drive
- Contact information
If you are a rural student with a 45 minute commute maximum, mention this early on. This prevents you from wasting time on potential placements that won’t work. Also find out if your institution requires an affiliation agreement in place prior to the start of clinicals. Some practices are able to complete one quickly, while others may take several weeks to process.
Contact Practices That Provide Real-World Care
In a very short period, focus on practices where primary care is being provided regularly, such as family medicine, community health centers, internal medicine practices with an outpatient component, retail health clinics, urgent care clinics, and rural health clinics. (Depends on your program’s policies).
Do not rely solely on an electronic form or an email address. Call the practice and ask who handles student placement requests and if they have had NP students previously. The person answering the phone may not know the answer, but they can often direct you to the office manager or lead provider.
Create a spreadsheet that tracks the date, contact person, response, and follow up action needed. After 10 contacts, those notes are essential.
Make a Specific Request That Is Easy to Answer
It is easier to get a response from practitioners when they can easily see the commitment involved. Do not simply say you need a preceptor soon – more on find an FNP preceptor if you want that route. Give specifics as to what you need, when you need it, and what your program will provide to facilitate the arrangement.
An initial e-mail could say something like:
“Hello, I am an FNP student looking for an outpatient primary care clinical site from [dates]. I need 180 hours and can complete 2 full days each week. My program will provide faculty support and will take care of all necessary paperwork. Would your practice be interested in discussing the possibility of a student for this time period?”
A quick follow up e-mail a few days later can be even shorter:
“I wanted to follow up on my request for a clinical placement. If this is not possible, please let me know if you would be able to recommend another clinician or contact.”
Time passes much more quickly than we expect.
Handle Rejections and Affiliation Agreements Quickly
Sometimes a “no” is not permanent. Perhaps the provider does not have the capacity to supervise, but another provider in the practice might be willing to do so. Ask if there is someone else in the practice who works with the population you need, or if they accept students at another time during the year.
If the issue is an affiliation agreement, get in touch with your clinical coordinator today. Find out who initiates the agreement, what information the practice will need, and what the usual processing time is for legal review. Do not make any commitments to a practice about how long the agreement will take to process if your school has not confirmed this.
Is a practice willing to host you, but will they be able to clear your credentials (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books is the page I keep coming back to) before the first day of the clinical?
Recover When a Preceptor Drops Out Mid-Semester
If you find yourself in the position of having lost your preceptor after the start of clinicals, keep track of the hours you have already completed and inform your program in writing. Inquire whether the hours will carry over and if the rest of the hours can be completed at two approved locations.
Go back through your contact list, beginning with the practices that responded with “not now.” Let them know that an unexpected cancellation occurred and that you have X hours remaining to complete, and you are ready to begin as soon as you have an official response.
Plan the Next 7 Days
There are better ways to handle late clinical placement searches, especially if each day has a specific goal. Finish your clinical packet, make calls to a few appropriate practices, follow up on previous correspondence, and coordinate affiliation agreements with your school. By tomorrow afternoon, send three specific clinical placement requests and record who you sent them to.
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