Who can precept an NAU nurse practitioner student

The five tests, in plain terms

The 2022-23 guidelines open this topic by tying NAU to the state: the requirements for serving as a preceptor follow the rules of the Arizona State Board of Nursing. Those rules, R4-19-502 in the Arizona Administrative Code, come down to five questions about any candidate.

• Will they supervise you directly? The preceptor is present and answerable for your work with patients.
• Is their license current and clean where they practice? A nursing or medical license, or a compact privilege, carrying no encumbrance.
• Have they practiced for at least a year? Time spent practicing as an APRN or a physician, not time as an RN.
• Does their practice match your program? Their population focus has to be comparable to yours.
• If they are a nurse, are they certified? National or board certification in the advanced practice role and population focus.

A candidate who passes all five is eligible, not yet approved. Approval comes from the FNP Program Coordinator, who also weighs the clinical setting.

Experience and population focus

The experience test calls for a full year or more in practice as a physician or an APRN. Earlier years at the bedside as an RN sit outside that count, so a nurse practitioner still in their first year of NP practice is not yet eligible, however capable.

The focus test asks that the preceptor's patient population compare with the one the APRN program prepares you for. For FNP students that means family care across the lifespan, and the guidelines' suggested blend of child, adult, women's health and specialty time across the three FNP practicums shows the range NAU expects. How a preceptor whose practice covers one age group or a specialty fits the rule needs the FNP Program Coordinator's view before you build a term around them.

For PMHNP students, the comparable focus is psychiatric mental health. No PMHNP preceptor criteria of NAU's own are public, but R4-19-502 governs every APRN program the Arizona Board approves, so the same baseline holds.

What the preceptor sends, and what the role involves

Once your Green Form is in, NAU asks the preceptor for a CV or resume, professional licensure and any specialty certification. The FNP Program Coordinator reviews those papers and approves, and only then are you told you may begin.

The role itself is shaped by the rule and the guidelines. Arizona lets preceptors add to faculty-directed clinical learning without replacing faculty, so your course faculty keep oversight from a distance. On site, presence is required: the guidelines bar students from the clinical area unless their preceptor is there too.

Arizona's rule also asks each APRN program for no fewer than 500 hours of clinical practice supervised by faculty in the role and population focus, which is why the preceptor's teaching sits inside a course, not beside it. Clinicians weighing an NAU student can read our page for preceptors of NAU students.

How we vet a preceptor before you see the name

Every preceptor our placement desk brings to an NAU student has already been run through these five tests as NAU applies them. We confirm the license on the state board's lookup, verify a year or more of practice as an NP or physician, match the population focus to your track, and confirm national certification for nurse preceptors.

Next comes the paperwork: the preceptor's CV, license and certificate in one packet, a named signer at the practice and the site's written yes, so your Green Form arrives complete, first box checked, before the cutoff. If a fresh affiliation agreement looks necessary, you hear it from us on day one. The FNP Program Coordinator makes the call; we make sure the file behind that call is whole. Begin on the contact form.