What FIU offers its nurse practitioner preceptors

Where these benefits come from

Everything on this page about recognition comes from one document: FIU's Advanced Practice Nursing Programs Clinical Preceptor Manual for academic year 2022/2023. FIU still links it, and the current graduate handbook points to the preceptor manual for detail, but the manual is several years old. Read its benefits as FIU's published terms from 2022.

Before you promise either benefit to a preceptor, or count on one as a preceptor, ask the Office of Clinical Education or the student's clinical faculty whether the terms still stand. The manual also frames precepting as volunteer work, and no FIU page mentions paying preceptors. Raise the benefits in a first conversation with a prospective preceptor as what FIU's manual describes, never as a promise of your own.

The Certificate of Participation

The larger benefit in the 2022 manual is a Certificate of Participation. After 300 hours of service a preceptor can receive one, and it waives tuition fees on as many as six credit hours within a single term.

The manual adds a counting rule: each student counted toward the 300 hours must have spent at least 100 hours with the preceptor in one semester. Short rotations with many students may not add up. Two students with 150 hours each in a semester, for example, would each clear the 100-hour floor.

Requests are routed through the Director of Clinical Education or the student's clinical faculty, two of the roles set out on our who does what page. Ask about any conditions on using the exempted credit hours, such as timing, when making the request.

What FIU asks of preceptors in return

The recognition sits against a real commitment. Under FIU's handbook and 2022 manual, a preceptor approves the student's documentation on site, signs the time-sheet log day by day or week by week without pre-signing it, evaluates the student midway and at the finish, and is present when the clinical faculty observes the student on at least 2 clinical days.

Preceptors also bring a year or more in their field or specialty, a current license and national certification, as the preceptor requirements page explains. Clinicians weighing the role can read precepting an FIU student for the whole picture, from the first meeting to the final evaluation. The 2022 manual also describes FIU's faculty-to-student ratio as intentionally small, in line with National Task Force guidelines from 2012, so a preceptor works alongside a faculty member who follows a small group of students.

Why preceptors say yes when we ask

We explain FIU's recognition accurately, labeled as the 2022 manual's terms, alongside exactly what precepting an FIU student involves: the folder, the time sheet, two evaluations and two observed visits. A preceptor who hears the whole picture at the start can commit to the full semester with open eyes.

For students, that means an ask that lands. We match you with preceptors in your specialty and area who have agreed to the commitment, and we assemble the full set of Preceptor Request Form details. The yes or no on each site and preceptor comes from FIU's Office of Clinical Education and faculty, and we give them a file that is whole and shaped to FIU's rules at the first submission. Preceptors and students can both reach us through the form below.