NP preceptors in Broward, Palm Beach and the Florida Keys
Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe complete the four-county area that Florida International University (FIU) calls its long-standing clinical territory, with Miami-Dade. A site here keeps you inside familiar ground for FIU's clinical department, but each county brings its own practical question: employer rules in Broward, the county line in Palm Beach, and distance and storms in the Keys.
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Tell us your FIU program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your FIU course.
Inside FIU's long-standing clinical area
FIU's MSN Clinical Education page describes Monroe, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties as its long-standing clinical area, and it lets students on the online primary care tracks go beyond them. For those online-track students, a site in any of the three counties covered here follows the usual path: you identify the practice, FIU's clinical department takes up the contract, and no clinical day happens before it is signed.
The hybrid FNP, PMHNP and AGACNP tracks come with one-on-one placement help from the clinical department, with the graduate nursing clinical coordinator handling placements at selected sites. Whichever track you are on, ask early whether a practice is named on the Clinical Site Contracts list, which the handbook's DNP section tells students to check, and whether a clinician there is already on FIU's approved preceptor list in Typhon. Both answers save weeks.
Broward: when your employer is a large system
For a student who works in a hospital, the first obstacle can be the employer. FIU's graduate handbook bars a rotation on the unit where you work, while allowing a separate unit at a large institution. A system's own policy can close that door entirely: Baptist Health South Florida's student rotation page does not let employees earn clinical hours where they are employed, and it accepts requests only from partner schools with signed agreements.
Cleveland Clinic Florida's onboarding page likewise routes advanced practice placements through the school, via an academic representative, and only once the affiliation agreement is fully signed. Memorial Healthcare System's student page, for its part, centers on scholarships for students in affiliated BSN programs. The Florida NP preceptors guide reads each system's page in full. For a student-led search, that points toward independent primary care and pediatric practices, physician groups and community clinics, with any system site cleared through FIU's clinical department first.
Palm Beach: the northern edge of FIU's area
Palm Beach is the northernmost of FIU's four home counties, and its northern boundary is also the edge of FIU's long-standing clinical area. A practice just across the line in Martin County sits outside that area. Online-track students may still use it, since FIU allows their clinicals beyond the four counties once a contract is in place, but get the Office of Clinical Education's written confirmation first.
Distance to campus matters more here. Online-track students can be called to campus one to three times a semester, according to FIU's MSN FAQ, and graduate nursing meets at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus in Miami. A site near your Palm Beach home keeps the weekday drive short, but plan your clinic days around those campus trips so you are not trading a clinical day for a visit. The campus visits guide explains what those visits involve.
Monroe: training in the Florida Keys
Monroe County belongs to FIU's long-standing clinical area even though the Keys stretch far from Miami along a single highway. For a student who lives there, geography shapes the whole search: a practice that looks close on a map can still mean a long weekday drive, so the plan has to fit the road as much as the specialty.
That makes three steps more important than usual. Check each candidate address in HRSA's shortage-area finder, since shortage records can point to community clinics worth approaching. Raise the site-visit question with your clinical faculty at the start, because FIU's 2022 preceptor manual has faculty watch you on at least two separate clinical days with your preceptor present. And keep a mainland backup in view, so one clinic's decision does not decide your semester.
Storms, holidays and missed days
Storms can close clinics, roads and campuses across South Florida during a term. FIU's graduate handbook is specific: during hurricanes, follow official university closures only. A clinic that closes for a storm, or a preceptor who evacuates, still leaves you with hours to make up, since missed clinical hours have to be made good under the handbook.
The handbook also moves clinical days that land on official holidays to a replacement day arranged with your preceptor. For Keys students especially, build a few spare days into the rotation from the start, agree with your preceptor how make-up days will be scheduled, and enter each finished day in Typhon inside the 7-day window, which protects the hours already earned. If a storm or closure puts the semester at risk, the behind on clinical hours guide covers the conversation with your faculty.
Rules that hold in all three counties
- The preceptor at any Florida site needs a Florida license under Board rule 64B9-4.001(13); see the Florida APRN guide.
- A practice lacking an FIU contract must get one first, and the current graduate handbook puts that at 6-8 weeks.
- FIU's handbook tells primary care students to expect weekday, daytime rotations.
- Family members and close friends cannot precept you, and your own unit is excluded.
- Clearance in Complio or FIU Express must be complete before the rotation starts.
- Clinical days fall only within official semester periods, and clinicals during campus breaks need your faculty's prior approval by email.
None of these change with the county; only the time each one costs changes, so the contract check comes first wherever the site sits.
How we search from Fort Lauderdale to Key West
We plan around your weekday reach, not the county line. For a Broward or Palm Beach student, that means practices near home or on the way to work, sorted into independent and system-owned, with any employer conflicts removed before you see the list. For a Keys student, it means every realistic office on your stretch of the islands plus a mainland fallback.
Every clinician on your list has been checked for Florida licensure, national certification and at least a year in the specialty, and every practice's FIU contract status is known before you commit. You get every field of the Preceptor Request Form prepared, and your placement advisor remains reachable through storm season and beyond. The decision on site and preceptor is FIU's, made by your faculty and the clinical education office, and the request they see has every piece in place. Share your city and practicum term in the form below.
Questions FIU students ask
Can FNP or PMHNP students use a site in Broward or Palm Beach?
Both counties sit inside FIU's long-standing clinical area. On the hybrid tracks the clinical department helps you one-on-one with placement, so tell the graduate nursing clinical coordinator where you live and which practices you know, and let any site you propose go through the coordinator before a preceptor commits.
What happens to my clinical days during a hurricane?
Follow official FIU closures only, as the graduate handbook directs, and make up any clinical hours you miss. Talk with your preceptor early about how storm days will be rescheduled, and keep your Typhon entries current so completed hours stay counted.
Is a site in Martin or St. Lucie County allowed for FIU clinicals?
Both counties lie outside FIU's four-county area. Online primary care track students may train beyond that area once a contract is in place, but confirm the site with the Office of Clinical Education first. Hybrid-track students should ask the graduate nursing clinical coordinator before pursuing it.
Can I train at the Broward hospital that employs me?
Only off your own unit. FIU permits a different unit at a large institution, but an employer may set a tighter rule, as Baptist Health South Florida's page does by keeping employees from counting clinical hours at their own facility. Check the employer's student policy in writing before proposing the site.
How do faculty site visits work for a clinic in the Keys?
FIU's 2022 preceptor manual has clinical faculty watch you work on two or more different clinical days, with your preceptor there, and the current handbook adds contact by phone and in person as needed. FIU does not describe how visits work far from Miami, so ask your clinical faculty before the rotation begins.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against FIU's own graduate handbook, preceptor manual, plans of study, catalog and licensure pages. Your plan of study, your course faculty, your clinical faculty and FIU's Office of Clinical Education have the final word.
FIU asks you to identify your clinical site. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your FIU track, where you live and which semester your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check early whether the site already holds an FIU contract, and prepare everything the Preceptor Request Form asks for.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adult and older-adult primary care for
NGR 6201L, pediatric primary care forNGR 6301L, an organizational mentor forNGR 7940C - Preceptor, facility, license and schedule details ready for the Preceptor Request Form, weeks ahead of the contract clock
- Across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe, or beyond them where FIU approves your site
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