FIU MSN Psychiatric-Mental Health NP (PMHNP): clinicals and preceptors
Florida International University (FIU) runs its Psychiatric-Mental Health NP as a hybrid, 47-credit MSN that puts psychopharmacology before any patient care, then three practicums: NGR 6503L, NGR 6504L and NGR 6550L. FIU's designated clinical department assists PMHNP students with one-on-one placements. We find psychiatric preceptors you can suggest through the Preceptor Request Form, and a replacement if one steps away mid-semester.
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.
Psychopharmacology before the first patient
What sets the FIU PMHNP plan apart is its order. NGR 6538 Psychopharmacology for Advanced Practice Nursing sits in semester 3, so the course on psychiatric medications is done before you reach your first psychiatric rotation. The same logic shapes the post-graduate certificate: FIU starts PMHNP certificate applicants in the summer so they finish psychopharmacology before clinicals.
The table follows the MSN order on the 5-2026 plan, which applies from Spring 2027. Before any of it, FIU's recency rule applies: advanced health assessment, pathophysiology and pharmacology (NGR 6002C, NGR 5141, NGR 6172) each need a B or better, earned no more than 3 years before your first clinical course.
| Semester | Course | Role in the sequence |
|---|---|---|
| 3, Summer | NGR 6538 Psychopharmacology, alongside NGR 6743 | Prepares you for psychiatric prescribing and for the first rotation |
| 4, Fall | NGR 6503L | First psychiatric practicum |
| 5, Spring | NGR 6504L | Second psychiatric practicum |
| 6, Summer | NGR 6550L | Final psychiatric practicum |
Three routes lead into these courses: the 47-credit MSN, the hybrid 38-credit post-graduate certificate, open to MSN holders adding a specialty, and the hybrid PMHNP specialty of the post-BSN to DNP.
770 or 630 hours: the PMHNP conflict
FIU gives PMHNP students two totals. The 2026-2027 catalog requires 770 direct patient care clinical hours, matching the MSN Clinical Education page. FIU's graduate handbook, in its April 30, 2026 revision, puts the PMHNP floor at 630 hours, and the post-BSN DNP Fall plan agrees with it, listing 1,170 total hours for the Psych track against 1,310 on the Spring plan.
FIU does not say which figure governs, and it publishes no hour count for each practicum. The working number for your cohort comes from your plan of study and from your course and clinical faculty; get it in writing before your first term of rotations. Until you have that answer, a preceptor schedule built around the higher total keeps you from running short in your final semester. The 770 vs 630 page sets out every source.
The course list differs as well. The handbook names NGR 6503C/NGR 6503L, NGR 6504C/NGR 6504L, NGR 6560 and NGR 6505L Role Synthesis, where the 5-2026 plan ends with NGR 6550L.
How PMHNP placements are arranged
The PMHNP track sits on the assisted side of FIU's placement split. On FIU's pages, one-on-one help with placement comes from a designated clinical department, and the find-your-own-site instruction is aimed at the online primary care tracks rather than PMHNP. Your main point of contact is the graduate nursing clinical coordinator, and each psychiatric rotation is planned by faculty with you during the semester before it.
Assisted is not the same as promised, and nothing FIU publishes commits to placing every PMHNP student. FIU's 2022 preceptor manual describes students suggesting sites to their clinical faculty rather than approaching sites to ask for a rotation. A strong suggestion, with the preceptor's details complete, gives the coordinator something concrete to act on. The online vs hybrid tracks page compares both models.
A site may require its own EHR training or extra screening on top of FIU's clearance. Build that time into your plan, because FIU's handbook treats starting before approval and a signed contract as a conduct violation.
Who can precept a PMHNP student
Florida's rule 64B9-4.001(13) lets certified, practicing APRNs, physicians (MD or DO) and dentists serve as NP preceptors, and at a Florida site each one needs a Florida license. For PMHNP students that usually means a psychiatric nurse practitioner or a psychiatrist.
FIU's own screen, set out on the preceptor requirements page, looks for a psychiatric clinician with a year or more in the specialty, a current license and board certification, and judges each candidate on training, background, philosophy of nursing and appetite for teaching. Its handbook asks for a nursing master's yet accepts physicians, a tension FIU leaves open, and it expects NPs to cover most of your hours.
If you already work in psychiatric nursing, your own unit is off the table for rotations, as are preceptors who are relatives or close friends; another unit within a large institution can still win approval.
Florida prescribing rules you will see in clinic
Psychiatric practice in Florida carries its own prescribing rules, and your preceptor works inside them daily. Board rule 64B9-4.016 limits APRN Schedule II prescriptions to a 7-day supply but exempts psychiatric medications prescribed by a psychiatric nurse under s. 394.455. Among APRNs, prescribing psychiatric controlled substances for patients under 18 is limited to psychiatric nurses.
Before prescribing a controlled substance to a patient aged 16 or older, the prescriber checks E-FORCSE, Florida's prescription drug monitoring program. In 2024, HB 7021 removed limits on APRNs treating the physical health of psychiatric patients.
The Board's rule counts behavioral and mental health conditions as primary care for autonomous practice, which opens after 3,000 hours of physician-supervised practice over five years. A 2026 bill to let autonomous psychiatric APRNs practice mental health without a protocol, HB 301 / SB 138, did not pass. The Florida APRN practice page explains protocols in full.
Where psychiatric preceptors practice in Miami-Dade
HRSA's shortage data show where the demand for mental health clinicians sits. Miami-Dade has 20 mental health HPSAs (19 designated, with one correctional site proposed for withdrawal): 10 at federally qualified health centers, 8 at correctional facilities, 1 tribal or urban Indian health site, and one low-income population area, South Florida Behavioral Network - Circuit 11.
Community settings matter for another reason. Florida's TEACH funding program, created by SB 7016 in 2024, pays eligible sites, among them community mental health centers, FQHCs and certified community behavioral health clinics, to make up revenue lost while their clinicians teach students. It pays facilities, not individual preceptors, but it supports the sites that take students.
Large hospital systems set their own rules for students, and their public pages are silent on any FIU agreement. The Miami-Dade preceptors guide covers the county in more depth.
Why PMHNP students choose us
- Psychiatric matches only. Psychiatric NPs and psychiatrists in outpatient, community and integrated settings, chosen for the psychiatric patients your course faculty want you to see.
- Every field filled. The psychiatric preceptor's license and expiration date, practice address, email and specialty, plus the term dates and clinic days you have agreed, organized the way the Preceptor Request Form lays them out.
- The contract question answered early. We learn whether the site already holds an FIU agreement, so a new contract's 6-8 weeks is planned rather than discovered.
- A DNP mentor for post-BSN Psych students. After the MSN, we find an organizational mentor for your residency and project, ideally doctorally prepared and never your usual work supervisor.
- A replacement when a preceptor leaves. Should your psychiatric preceptor step away partway through a term, a new candidate reaches your clinical faculty and the coordinator while your hours can still be recovered.
Approval of the site and the preceptor stays with FIU: its clinical department, your faculty and the Office of Clinical Education. Our work is making sure the psychiatric site in front of them is complete and fits FIU's rules at first reading.
Questions FIU students ask
Can a psychiatrist precept an FIU PMHNP student?
Yes. Psychiatrists fit both FIU's preceptor language, which includes physicians, and Florida's rule, which lists MDs and DOs. At a Florida practice the psychiatrist must be licensed in Florida. Because FIU's handbook expects NPs to supervise most of your time, plan on a psychiatric NP for at least part of your hours.
Does FIU find PMHNP clinical sites for students?
FIU describes one-on-one placement help from its designated clinical department, with the graduate nursing clinical coordinator in touch with sites. No FIU page promises a placement for every PMHNP student, so ask the coordinator early how your rotation is being arranged and have a psychiatric practice ready to suggest if the first option falls through.
Do FIU PMHNP rotations run on weekdays?
The handbook gives two patterns: weekday business hours for primary care tracks, and possible evenings, nights or weekends for acute care. PMHNP is not named in either, so your psychiatric preceptor's clinic hours set the pattern. Settle them before the term begins, then forward the schedule to your clinical faculty during the opening week of clinical seminar.
When do FIU PMHNP certificate students start clinicals?
FIU starts PMHNP certificate applicants in the summer so psychopharmacology is finished before patient care. On the certificate plan, practicum I (NGR 6503L) comes in semester 4, after NGR 6538 in semester 3, followed by NGR 6504L and NGR 6550L. Rotations are arranged the semester before each course, so the search begins a full semester before that first practicum.
Can I do PMHNP hours on the psych unit where I work?
Not on that unit. FIU keeps students off the unit that employs them, although it can approve another unit inside a large institution. Health systems may be stricter; Baptist Health South Florida, for example, keeps employees from doing clinical hours in their own facility. See working where you work for the options.
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
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