FIU's Office of Clinical Education: contracts, approvals and what it needs from you

One office, three names

FIU refers to the same unit in three ways. The graduate handbook calls it the NWCNHS Office of Clinical Education and, in other passages, the Clinical Education Department; the MSN Clinical Education page calls it the designated clinical department. When any FIU document tells you to work with the clinical department, this is the office it means.

The office works with the college's Office of Academic Affairs on site selection. For graduate students, the handbook describes it as the body that helps establish contracts with clinical partners and as the judge of whether every site and preceptor has its contracts and paperwork in order. For RN to BSN students, the 2021 information package points to the Clinical Education Department or the RN-BSN Program Coordinator for word on existing South Florida contracts.

The people behind the office

The graduate nursing clinical coordinator is the title you will hear most. In the handbook, this is the go-to person for placements at selected sites, reaching out to preceptors and practices and keeping up the correspondence until a placement is settled. Two more titles appear in FIU's documents: a Clinical Site Coordinator in the handbook and, in the 2022 manual, a Director of Clinical Education, who with the clinical faculty handles preceptors' requests for the Certificate of Participation.

Your clinical faculty member, one per student each semester, signs your request, arranges site visits and approves your Typhon entries. Track program leaders, the Graduate Nursing Advisor and, for DNP students, the DNP Program Director complete the picture. The who does what guide maps each title to its part of a rotation.

Questions worth asking the office early

The office holds answers FIU does not publish, so a short list of questions in the semester before your practicum saves time later.

• Does this practice already hold an FIU contract, and is it on the Clinical Site Contracts list?
• Is this preceptor already on the Typhon NWCNHS approved list?
• Can my online-track rotation take place beyond FIU's four home counties, or in another state?
• Which clinical-hour total applies to my cohort, the 770 on the web pages or the handbook's 630 minimum?
• Is my clearance account in Complio or FIU Express?
• How are faculty site visits handled for a practice far from Miami?

Keep each answer with its date. Where FIU's documents disagree, as they do on hours and contract timing, the office's written reply is what you can point to later; the 770 vs 630 hours guide explains the largest of those gaps.

How we make the office's review straightforward

Everything the office asks for is something we assemble before you submit. We confirm the preceptor's license, expiration date and certification, collect the facility and schedule details for the request form, and find out at the outset whether the practice already holds an FIU agreement, so any wait for a new contract appears in your plan from day one.

We also keep the file consistent: the same preceptor name, specialty and address on the form, in your clearance record and in your Typhon setup. Approval decisions belong to the office and your faculty; we make sure nothing is missing when they review, and if the office comes back with a question, the preceptor's details are already on file for a quick answer. Share your program and practicum semester through the form below.