APRN students require specialized clinical placements to gain clinical skills as a nurse practitioner or midwife. Securing placements is a collaborative effort between students, faculty, and our clinical affairs 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 following semester.
APRN Students enrolled prior to Summer 2023
This section applies to APRN students who began their program prior to Summer 2023 semester, including students matriculating from a prelicensure program.
The Clinical Affairs team partners with faculty to coordinate rotations for local and distant advanced practice nursing students during your program. To better assist, we also encourage students to develop a list of possible sites that may be available to precept.
During the program, local students are expected to sometimes travel 150 miles or more from the School of Nursing for clinical rotations. Students are encouraged to take advantage of free housing in these locations provided by AHEC. For more information please contact your Clinical Placement Specialist. 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 facility and/or preceptors at those facilities. Please connect with your Clinical Placement Coordinator for further instructions.
To assist you with your placement process, please see our Post-Licensure Online Resource tool
APRN Students enrolled Summer 2023 and after
This section applies to MN and APRN students who began their program on and after Summer 2023 semester except CRNA, Nell Fellow and Perfusion.
As a APRN student, you have the ability to complete you clinical education in locations near your home and can identify your preferred clinical site and preceptors in accordance with your program standards. It is important to note that you have an active, required role in finding your clinical placements, with the support of the Clinical Affairs team.
When securing a site/preceptor, the following steps should be followed:
- Step #1
Student initiates a search in their place of residence for their desired specialty as well as develop a list of possible sites that they have a better knowledge of and can use personal networks and connections to identify a preceptor or clinical site. Review the guidelines specific to your specialty. Once identified, utilize the Post Licensure Online Resource Portal for next steps.
- Step #2
If the student is not able to identify a preceptor, students should connect with the clinical affairs team and faculty regularly to review potential placements.
- Step #3
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.
While a clinical placement is not guaranteed, every effort is made to work together to secure clinical placements for every student.
To assist you with your placement process, please see our Post-Licensure APRN Online Resource Portal
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: