Precepting a Florida International University NP student

Who FIU accepts as a preceptor

FIU looks for clinicians with a year or more in their field or specialty who hold a current license and national board certification. The graduate handbook weighs your schooling, your experience, any NP or CNS credential, how you think about nursing, and whether you want to teach. The handbook also states that a master's in nursing is required while naming physicians as preceptors, and FIU leaves those two lines side by side. Most rotations are with nurse practitioners.

A few relationships rule a preceptor out. You cannot precept a relative or close friend, and students may not train on the unit where they are employed (another unit inside a large organization can qualify). For DNP students FIU uses an organizational mentor instead, ideally doctorally prepared and never the student's regular work supervisor. The preceptor requirements page sets out every condition.

What a rotation asks of you

1. Agree the scheduleSettle days and hours with the student before the term's first clinical day; the student then files the full schedule with the clinical faculty as clinical seminar begins. FIU expects primary care rotations in weekday office hours, while acute care can mean nights and weekends.
2. Read the preceptor folderYour student arrives at the first meeting with a folder: what the course aims to teach, the competencies you will judge, blank evaluation forms, how to reach the faculty, and the student's personal goals for the rotation. Plan for training on your electronic health record, too.
3. Approve documentationYou approve the student's documentation on site, and FIU's manual refers to timecards approved in Typhon. Every patient encounter goes into Typhon NPST inside a week; FIU refuses entries older than 7 days and makes the student repeat those hours, so a quick review on your end protects the student. Faculty give the final approval.
4. Sign the time-sheet logSign the student's time sheet, FIU's Clinical Rotation Time-Sheet Log, at the close of each day or each week, for hours already worked. Signing ahead of time is not allowed.
5. Evaluate twiceHalfway through and again in the final days, you rate the student on the Appendix C form in FIU's preceptor manual; the student sets up both.
6. Host faculty visitsExpect the clinical faculty member on site for two or more separate clinical days, watching the student work with you there, then writing a site visit evaluation. Calls may come in between.

The Typhon logs and evaluations and site visits pages give the student's side of each step.

What FIU offers its preceptors

Precepting for FIU is volunteer work, and the 2022 manual recognizes it in two ways. Supervise APN students from the Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences in your certification specialty for 120 hours or more and you qualify for ANCC Category 5 preceptorship documentation, which counts toward certification renewal.

Reach 300 hours and FIU issues a Certificate of Participation, good for a tuition-fee exemption on as many as six credit hours in a single term. Only students who logged 100 or more hours with you in one semester count toward it. Ask the clinical faculty or the Director of Clinical Education to request either one and to confirm today's terms.

FIU also keeps a list of approved preceptors in Typhon. The request form lets a student tick a box when the preceptor is already listed, so your second FIU student is quicker to set up. If your practice is an FQHC, a community mental health center, a rural health clinic or a certified community behavioral health clinic, Florida's TEACH program, created in 2024, pays qualified facilities to cover income lost while staff mentor students. The preceptor recognition page has the details.