The FIU clinical placement process, from seminar to final evaluation
Florida International University (FIU) sets up each nurse practitioner rotation in the semester before the practicum, as a joint process between you and your faculty. If you are on one of the two online primary care tracks, adult-gerontology or pediatric, finding the practice falls to you, the contract falls to FIU's clinical department, and patient care waits until both the contract and your clearance are done. This page walks the whole path in order and points to the detailed guide for each stage.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your FIU program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your FIU course.
The whole path in twelve stages
FIU spreads these stages across its 2025-2026 Graduate Nursing Student Handbook and its 2022 Advanced Practice Nursing Programs Clinical Preceptor Manual rather than printing one checklist. Here they are in the order an online-track student meets them.
- Clear the pre-clinical coursesHealth assessment, pathophysiology and pharmacology, passed recently enough to count; the details are in the next section.
- Take the clinical education seminar
NGR 6743sits in semester 3 of the plan of study, just ahead of the first practicum. - Identify a site and preceptorOn the online tracks this is your task, and the site may lie beyond FIU's four South Florida counties.
- File the Preceptor Request FormPreceptor, facility, specialty, address, course, term, days and times, then your faculty member's signature.
- Let the contract clearA site without an FIU agreement goes to the Clinical Education Department, and a new agreement takes weeks.
- Finish clinical clearanceBackground check, drug screen, immunizations, BLS and forms, uploaded to Complio or FIU Express.
- Hand over the preceptor folderBring it to the first meeting: the course's objectives and competencies, the evaluation forms, how to reach your faculty, and goals you wrote yourself.
- Send your scheduleSettle hours with the preceptor before the term; your clinical faculty expects the full schedule no later than week one of clinical seminar.
- Log every day in Typhon NPSTEntries go in within 7 days; late entries are refused and those hours are repeated.
- Keep the time-sheet log signedThe preceptor signs it daily or weekly and must not sign ahead of time.
- Arrange two preceptor evaluationsOne at mid-rotation and one at the end, on the manual's Appendix C form.
- Host the faculty site visitsA faculty member watches you work on two or more separate clinical days, with your preceptor on hand.
Before you search: courses, recency and timing
Your clinical path starts in coursework. The graduate handbook requires Advanced Health Assessment (NGR 6002C), Pathophysiologic Concepts (NGR 5141) and Pharmacological Concepts (NGR 6172) with at least a B, completed within three years before any clinical course begins. If one of them has aged past that window, you retake it before a practicum can start.
In the 5-2026 revision of the full-time MSN plan, NGR 6743 Advanced Practice Nursing Clinical Education Seminar falls in semester 3, the summer, and the first practicum follows in semester 4, the fall of year two. Because rotations are arranged the semester before each clinical course, the search for your first site runs alongside the seminar and the months leading up to it. The semester-before planner turns that into dates.
Finding the site and getting it on paper
Three groups carry the search themselves: the two online MSN primary care tracks, the matching online certificates and the post-BSN to DNP's online specialties. FIU's Clinical Education page has them team up with the clinical department on the contract. The hybrid FNP, PMHNP and AGACNP tracks get one-on-one help from that department instead; the track-by-track breakdown shows where your program sits.
Once a preceptor agrees, the details go onto the Preceptor Request Form, Appendix A of the 2022 manual. Your faculty member signs it, then FIU staff fill in two items of their own: when the site was last evaluated, and the preceptor's license and its expiration date. The practical side of the search, from shortlisting practices to the first conversation, is in finding your own preceptor.
Three green lights before day one
Nothing clinical starts until three separate approvals line up. The site needs an agreement: if FIU-NWCNHS has not yet approved the practice, the Clinical Education Department works to obtain one, and naming a practice on the form does not by itself secure it. FIU's documents give different lead times, which the site contracts guide sets side by side.
Then come approval and clearance. The NWCNHS Office of Clinical Education confirms that the paperwork for both the practice and the clinician is in order, and your own clearance must be complete, item by item, as listed on the clinical clearance page. Seeing patients before those approvals counts as unprofessional conduct under the handbook.
| Green light | Who gives it | Where FIU sets it out |
|---|---|---|
| Site and preceptor proposed | You, on the online tracks | MSN Clinical Education page |
| Request approved | Your faculty member, by signature | Preceptor Request Form, Appendix A |
| Contract in place | Clinical Education Department | Clinical Education page; graduate handbook |
| Site and preceptor documents confirmed | Office of Clinical Education | Graduate handbook |
| Your clearance complete | You, in Complio or FIU Express | Graduate handbook; Clinicals & Fieldwork page |
During the rotation: logs, sign-offs and visits
Your first meeting with the preceptor should include the preceptor folder, and the site may also require training on its electronic health record and its own policies. Expect primary care days to fall on weekdays in business hours, and only within the official semester; a day scheduled in a campus break needs an approving email from your faculty in advance.
From then on the paperwork runs every week. Every patient encounter is logged in Typhon NPST inside a 7-day window, your preceptor approves documentation at the site and faculty approve the entries, and the Clinical Rotation Time-Sheet Log (Appendix D) collects the preceptor's signature as you go. A preceptor evaluation at the midpoint and another at the close, plus the faculty visits, round out the term; the evaluations guide explains both.
When FIU's documents disagree about who searches
FIU's older paperwork describes a different model. The 2022 preceptor manual tells graduate students not to approach preceptors or clinical sites directly and describes a centrally run system where the student's role stops at suggesting sites. The 2021 MSN and certificate brochures advertised clinical placements arranged by the school, the primary care tracks included.
The current MSN Clinical Education page is FIU's live instruction for the online tracks, and it puts the site search with you. If a faculty member or a document you receive points the other way, ask the Office of Clinical Education which approach applies to your cohort before you contact any practice. Since you may change sites and preceptors every semester, the answer can matter more than once.
Why FIU students hand this path to us
We are built around this exact sequence. For an online-track student we find preceptors who fit the course, whether that means adults and older adults in primary care (NGR 6201L) or children in primary care (NGR 6301L), in person near you, and we collect every field the request form asks for before it goes to your faculty.
We find out at the start whether the practice is already under an FIU agreement, since a fresh one adds weeks, and we keep clearance renewals, the 7-day Typhon rule and the semester-before timing in view the whole way. If a preceptor withdraws mid-semester, we are on call to find a replacement. Approval of each site and preceptor stays with FIU's faculty and Office of Clinical Education, and the file we help you assemble leaves them nothing to chase. Begin with the form at the bottom of this page.
Questions FIU students ask
How long does the whole FIU placement process take?
FIU gives no single figure. Rotations are set up the semester before the practicum, the 2022 manual wants preceptor names eight or more weeks before the start date, and the current handbook puts a new site contract at 6-8 weeks. Clearance items such as the background check and immunizations also need time to post, so beginning early in the preceding semester gives each stage room.
Do I repeat the process for every practicum?
Each practicum needs an approved site and preceptor for that term, and the handbook lets you change both every semester. If you stay with the same preceptor, ask your clinical faculty which parts of the request must be filed again for the new course and dates. Clearance items renew on their own cycles, such as the yearly flu shot and TB test.
Is the process different for DNP residency hours?
Yes. You identify an organizational mentor, ideally doctorally prepared, and FIU checks the site's contract through its organizational mentor approval process before you begin; your team then goes on the DNP Project and DNP Team Approval Form. Post-MSN rotations also need a joint sign-off from the Clinical Education Department and the DNP Program Director. The handbook's residency section lists every step.
Which FIU office handles clinical placements?
The NWCNHS Office of Clinical Education, which FIU also calls the Clinical Education Department or the designated clinical department. It negotiates agreements with practices and confirms that each site and preceptor has the documents FIU requires, and the graduate nursing clinical coordinator is the central contact for placements. Two good first questions for it: whether a practice already holds an FIU contract, and how long a new one would take.
Where are the forms for each stage?
Most live in the appendices of FIU's 2022 preceptor manual for its advanced practice programs: A for the request, C for your preceptor's evaluation of you, and D for the time-sheet log. Clearance items and one-time forms are listed in the graduate handbook, and college-wide forms are posted on FIU's Clinicals & Fieldwork page. Syllabi for MSN and DNP courses are on FIU SharePoint.
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
Start your placement plan
Track, city and semester is all we need to begin.