Kentucky nurses considering FIU: no program approval, strict preceptor licensing
Kentucky's Board of Nursing approves only the prelicensure programs that start in Kentucky, so an out-of-state school running clinicals there needs no board approval. The state's attention goes to people instead: who supervises and precepts you, and what license they hold. Florida International University (FIU) leaves Kentucky licensure undetermined, and whether its online tracks can place you in Kentucky is FIU's call to make first.
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Tell us your FIU program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your FIU course.
Does Kentucky have to approve FIU?
No. KBN, the Kentucky Board of Nursing, is blunt about schools from elsewhere: they are not required to seek its approval, even when their only link to Kentucky is a clinical placement. The board's approval work is limited to prelicensure programs born in Kentucky, and it treats RN to BSN programs as beyond its reach.
A statute adds a wrinkle. KBN draws attention to KRS 314.101, which spares visiting nurses from other states during a clinical rotation in Kentucky if their school participates in SARA or is licensed by Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education. FIU's SARA membership runs through SREB, and NC-SARA's directory lists FIU as a participant. Exactly how the exemption fits your rotation is for KBN and FIU to confirm.
Who may precept or supervise you in Kentucky?
Here Kentucky gets exacting. For online graduate programs that prepare APRNs, KBN's rule reaches everyone who teaches you on Kentucky soil. Your preceptor, and any faculty member overseeing you at a Kentucky site, needs two clean, current Kentucky credentials: an RN license and an APRN license. KBN relaxes this for faculty who reside in a compact state, who may rely on the Kentucky APRN license alone.
The RN to BSN version is milder. Clinical faculty and preceptors there need a Kentucky RN license only if they live outside the compact. FIU's preceptor requirements then apply on top: at least twelve months in the specialty, a current license, national certification, and no personal ties to you.
A Kentucky NP preceptor without an active Kentucky APRN license cannot precept an online APRN student in Kentucky, however willing.
What does FIU say about Kentucky?
FIU vouches for Florida only. Its licensure page certifies three nursing programs for Florida and offers no finding for anywhere else; the licensure disclosure page covers the details. The MSN admits holders of a current Florida RN license; a multistate license issued by Kentucky goes unmentioned.
Kentucky and Florida both started honoring multistate RN licenses in January 2018, and Kentucky has not adopted the APRN Compact. FIU's online primary care tracks allow sites past Monroe, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, yet Kentucky never comes up, so start with the Office of Clinical Education. A move to Kentucky mid-program needs reporting under Policy 1370.001, since your learner location changes only when you tell FIU.
Where do Kentucky NP students look?
AANP files Kentucky under reduced practice. To prescribe, an NP who qualifies maintains a pair of physician agreements, covering controlled and non-controlled drugs separately, unless KBN grants an exemption, and a first-year licensee meets extra conditions about where they may practice. That matters most if you plan to work in Kentucky after FIU.
More than a million Kentuckians live in the Kentucky share of the Louisville metro. Lexington ranks next, then the state's piece of the Cincinnati metro, then Bowling Green. Search lists usually include Baptist Health (its footprint spans Kentucky and southern Indiana), plus Norton Healthcare, St. Elizabeth Healthcare, UofL Health, and UK HealthCare, the University of Kentucky's system. Each would weigh a request on its own terms, and FIU would need a contract with any site.
How we help in Kentucky
Kentucky's licensing rules narrow the field, so we start there. We shortlist preceptors who hold the Kentucky APRN license the state requires and meet FIU's standards, match them to your practicum, find out early which practices FIU already has under contract, and give FIU a complete request. Start your Kentucky search.
Questions FIU students ask
Can I take FIU's online AGPCNP track from Louisville or Lexington?
FIU has not said either way. You would need a Florida RN license to enter the MSN, FIU's disclosure makes no Kentucky finding, and its clinical pages never address rotations outside Florida. Kentucky itself asks for no program approval, so FIU's answer and your preceptor's Kentucky licensing are the deciding factors.
My preceptor lives in Indiana and works in Louisville. Which licenses count?
KBN's guidance for online APRN programs asks every preceptor in Kentucky for an active Kentucky APRN license. For faculty residing in compact states, Indiana included, KBN drops the separate Kentucky RN license; ask KBN whether a preceptor gets the same treatment. Our Indiana page covers the other side of the river.
Does Kentucky's reduced practice status affect my FIU rotation?
Not directly. FIU judges preceptors on experience, licensure and certification, and physicians may precept as well as NPs. The physician agreements Kentucky NPs keep for prescribing govern their own practice. They matter more to your plans after graduation if you intend to practice in Kentucky.
Does the KRS 314.101 exemption mean I need no Kentucky license for clinicals?
The exemption KBN mentions covers nurses licensed elsewhere who rotate through Kentucky clinics, tied to the school's SARA participation or a license from the state's postsecondary council. Ask KBN how it applies to your license and program before you rely on it, and keep the written answer with your clinical file.
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
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