Online vs hybrid FIU tracks: who finds your clinical site
At Florida International University (FIU), who finds your clinical site depends on your track. Students on the predominantly online adult-gerontology and pediatric primary care tracks locate their own site; family, psychiatric-mental health and adult-gerontology acute care students, on hybrid tracks, get one-on-one placement assistance from FIU's clinical department; Nurse Anesthesia and the BSN programs are assigned. Older FIU documents describe a different model, and this page sets out both.
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 two statements that sort every track
FIU's current MSN Clinical Education page makes two statements that together decide your situation. The first is general: "Our designated clinical department assists students with one-on-one clinical placements." The second is limited to the online tracks, whose students may train beyond Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach: for them, identifying the clinical site is the student's responsibility, with the department's help on the contract.
Read side by side, online-track students find the site and FIU handles the agreement, while students on the other NP tracks receive the department's one-on-one assistance. One rule binds both groups: no rotation begins before the contract with the site is in place. The table below sorts every FIU nursing program into one of those models, or into the assigned model used outside the NP tracks.
Program by program
Two programs have no FIU statement at all: the MSN Nurse Educator teaching practicum and the MSN portion of the RN to BSN/MSN. If you are in either, ask your program office who arranges the site.
| Program | Delivery | Who identifies the site | FIU's basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSN Adult-Gerontology Primary Care NP | Predominantly online | You; the clinical department helps with the contract | MSN Clinical Education page |
| MSN Pediatric Primary Care NP | Predominantly online | You, on the same terms | MSN overview and Clinical Education page |
| Online AGPCNP and PNP certificates | Online | You | Post-graduate certificate page |
| Post-BSN to DNP, online specialties | Predominantly online | You, with the department securing the contract | DNP overview |
| MSN FNP and PMHNP | Hybrid | Clinical department assists one-on-one | Clinical Education page; graduate handbook |
| MSN AGACNP | Hybrid on the certificate page | Clinical department assists one-on-one | Clinical Education page; graduate handbook |
| Hybrid certificates (FNP, PMHNP, AGACNP, Pediatric Acute Care) | Hybrid | No student-responsibility statement | Post-graduate certificate page |
| DNP residency hours | Online or mixed | You find an organizational mentor; FIU approves and holds the contract | Graduate handbook |
| RN to BSN | Fully online | You, ideally inside your own facility | BSN handbook |
| DNP Nurse Anesthesia | Campus and hospital | FIU assigns affiliated sites | DNP-NA manual (2022) |
| Traditional and Accelerated Option BSN | On campus | FIU assigns clinical groups | Clinicals page; BSN handbook |
Hybrid tracks: help from the clinical department
FNP, PMHNP and AGACNP students sit outside the student-responsibility sentence, so FIU's general statement about one-on-one help from the clinical department is what applies to them. In the handbook, the graduate nursing clinical coordinator is the hub for placements at selected sites and the one writing to preceptors and practices as each placement takes shape.
No current FIU page states in plain words that every hybrid-track student is placed by FIU, so treat the department's role as assistance and get in touch with it early. Acute care students should also note two details: the handbook warns that AGACNP rotations may include evenings, nights and weekends, and the acute care certificate plan lists a mandatory Clinical Placement Orientation in April and May before rotations begin. Track detail is on the FNP, PMHNP and AGACNP pages.
DNP mentors, RN to BSN and the assigned programs
DNP residency hours follow their own model. You choose an organizational mentor, either where you practice or elsewhere in your community; FIU approves the pairing and holds the contract, and a post-MSN rotation also needs the joint approval of the Clinical Education Department and the DNP Program Director. RN to BSN students are steered by the current BSN handbook toward a preceptor inside their own facility, and the 2021 information package states that locating practicum experiences is not a job faculty or advisors take on.
Nurse Anesthesia runs the other way round. Its clinical coordinator and faculty decide which affiliated site each student attends, and the 2022 program manual makes no promise about location or travel distance. Traditional and Accelerated Option BSN students go out in instructor-led clinical groups, with faculty choosing the facility; see the Nurse Anesthesia and BSN clinicals pages.
Older FIU documents that describe central placement
If you have read FIU's older material, you may have met a different picture. FIU's AY 2022/2023 preceptor manual for its advanced practice programs tells graduate nursing students not to approach preceptors or clinical sites directly about a placement, and it has placements run centrally, with students limited to proposing sites. The MSN brochure dated 2.2021 and the post-graduate certificate brochure of the same year both advertised clinical placements by the school, Adult-Gerontology and Pediatric tracks included.
FIU's general nursing clinicals page adds to the mix by saying graduate students are assigned individual placements under a nurse preceptor, with no exception for online tracks. For online-track students, the current Clinical Education page is the live instruction. When a document in your hands disagrees with it, put the difference to the Office of Clinical Education and follow the answer it gives for your cohort.
Where we fit, whatever your track
For online-track students we run the whole search: preceptors who fit NGR 6201L or NGR 6301L and their patient groups, close to where you live, with the request details gathered and the contract status checked before anything reaches FIU. For DNP students we find organizational mentors who suit the project and meet the handbook's rules on supervisors and job-site hours.
Hybrid-track students can use us as a second line when the clinical department's timeline runs tight or a preceptor withdraws partway through a semester, and we start a replacement search at once. On every track, FIU's Office of Clinical Education and faculty decide on each site and preceptor; we make sure the file in front of them is complete. Use the form below to tell us your program.
Questions FIU students ask
Is FIU's FNP program online?
FIU describes the MSN Family NP track as hybrid, like the Psychiatric-Mental Health NP track. Only the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care and Pediatric Primary Care tracks are called predominantly online, with one to three campus visits a semester possible. That distinction also decides whether FIU's student-responsibility sentence on clinical sites applies to you.
Does FIU place hybrid-track students in clinical sites?
FIU says its designated clinical department assists students with one-on-one clinical placements, and the handbook makes the graduate nursing clinical coordinator the central contact. No current FIU page says in plain words that every hybrid-track student is placed, so ask the coordinator early what help to expect and whether you should suggest sites of your own.
Why does my 2022 preceptor manual say not to contact preceptors?
The manual predates FIU's current Clinical Education page and reflects a central placement model built on student suggestions. For the online tracks, the current web page, which makes you identify the site, is FIU's live instruction. Still confirm with the Office of Clinical Education how your cohort should approach practices, and keep its answer in writing.
Do post-graduate certificate students find their own sites?
On the online certificates, yes: the AGPCNP and PNP certificates carry the same student-responsibility statement as the MSN tracks. The hybrid certificates in FNP, PMHNP, AGACNP and Pediatric Acute Care carry no such statement. The certificates use the same practicum courses as the MSN, so a site has to fit those courses and their patient groups.
Can I switch to a hybrid track to get placement help?
Moving between FIU graduate nursing programs takes a transfer request form, which the department chair reviews with the program leaders. Delivery, credits, practicum courses and the certification you prepare for all differ between tracks, so weigh a switch on the specialty you want to practice in rather than on placement arrangements alone.
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.