Rural and tribal clinicals at NAU, ideally close to home
Northern Arizona University advertises NP rotations in rural and underserved communities, and NAU's clinical pages have listed places from Tuba City and Navajo Nation sites to Kingman and Yuma. For a working nurse the hard part is distance: NAU's 2022-23 FNP Clinical Guidelines warn that a placement may involve overnight stays, paid by the student. The strongest rural placement is a qualified preceptor in the community where you already live.
Find a rural preceptor near you
Tell us your town, your program and the practicum you need next.
What NAU says about rural and tribal settings
NAU's degree page for the MS Nursing, Advanced Practice describes chances to complete rotations in rural and underserved communities and to care for diverse patient populations. An older NAU clinicals page, captured in 2023, listed where nursing students trained: Flagstaff, Cottonwood, Sedona, Tuba City, Gallup, several Navajo Nation sites, Yuma, Phoenix, Kingman and other Arizona towns. Gallup is actually in New Mexico, though the page presented the whole list as Arizona.
The college's general nursing page also speaks of rural clinics and tribal health organizations across the state, but that copy is written mostly for BSN students. No NAU source makes a rural rotation mandatory for FNP or PMHNP students. If your plan of study carries one, your program coordinator and course faculty are the people who set it.
The travel clause every FNP student signs
The 2022-23 guidelines put it this way: "While effort is made to minimize student travel, overnight accommodations may be necessary." Transportation, housing and every other cost of clinical immersion fall on the student, and the program owes no alternate site to someone who declines a placement because of the drive. Students sign an acknowledgment in the guidelines' appendix that repeats that last point in the first person.
Distance also collides with the calendar. Clinical time on weekends, holidays and university breaks needs the FNP Program Coordinator's advance sign-off under the same guidelines, so a site three hours away cannot simply be folded into Saturdays. A 300-hour practicum such as NUR 663 at a far site can mean weeks of weekday nights away from home and work.
Declining a distant offer does not produce a closer one. Line up a nearby preceptor and submit the Green Form before a distant offer is the only one on the table.
Tribal and Indian Health Service settings
Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation, a tribal health organization in northern Arizona, says it welcomes graduate-level students and residents, and its learning page sends questions about scheduling a rotation to its Academic Dean. That is its own published process; whether NAU holds an agreement with it is a question for the Clinical Placement Coordinator.
The Indian Health Service describes several student routes, none of them a general NP placement desk. Its rotations page covers pharmacy clerkships under school agreements, medical electives and the IHS Nurse Residency Program, a work-study path for nurses, DNP-track APRNs among them, who agree to serve in IHS, tribal or urban programs. Its nursing student page lists the IHS Extern Program, clinical experience in an Indian health facility for scholarship recipients and other health professions students, plus the IHS Scholarship Program, which carries a service commitment.
For clinics and hospitals without a published student page, ask the facility's education office or clinic manager directly, then carry what you learn to NAU on the Green Form.
Preceptors at federal and tribal sites
Arizona rule R4-19-502, which NAU copies into its guidelines, asks a preceptor to hold an unencumbered RN or physician license in the state where they practice, with one exception that matters here: a federal employee may hold any current, unencumbered U.S. RN or physician license. An IHS nurse practitioner licensed in another state can therefore still qualify.
The other requirements do not bend. The clinician needs at least a year of practice as a physician or advanced practice nurse, a population focus comparable to yours, and, for a nurse preceptor, national or board certification in the role and focus. Whether a tribally operated clinic's staff count as federal employees is a question for the FNP Program Coordinator, who approves every preceptor. The full rule is on our preceptor requirements page.
The PMHNP rural project in NUR 689
PMHNP students in the MS carry rural care into their final project. NUR 689 Professional Project is a 4-unit, pass-fail capstone "related to meeting an identified health need in a rural community", alongside the 13-unit NUR 680 practicum, which requires in-person engagement.
The catalog does not say whether the project has to connect to your practicum site or to the town where you live. A student already working in a rural community has an obvious health need to study close at hand, but course faculty decide the scope. Because the practicum is in person, a PMHNP student far from any psychiatric setting faces the same travel math as an FNP student, one more reason to find a psychiatric preceptor near home. The NUR 689 guide and the NUR 680 guide cover what NAU publishes about each course.
Rural experience without the long drive
Many NAU students already live in exactly these places: small towns and reservation communities across Arizona. An all-ages family practice in one of those towns can see newborns, adults, prenatal visits and elders in the same week, which feeds the pediatric and women's health hours in the recommended FNP mix without a second site.
That is where we come in. We search your own county and the towns around it first, reach the clinic manager or education office, and test every candidate against the Arizona preceptor rule, federal-license clause and all.
The clinician's CV, license and certification come to us, the site signs off before your Green Form leaves your hands, and any need for a new NAU agreement surfaces in the first week rather than the last. Summer, fall and spring are planned as a set so no single practicum hinges on a three-hour commute, and if a preceptor steps away, the same team that found them starts the search for the next. Our Flagstaff and northern Arizona guide covers the region, or use the form below.
Questions NAU students ask
Does NAU require a rural rotation for FNP students?
No NAU source makes one mandatory. The degree page describes opportunities for rotations in rural and underserved communities, and older NAU pages list rural and tribal towns among clinical locations. Requirements on a plan of study come from the FNP Program Coordinator and course faculty, so ask them if you are unsure whether a rural site is expected in a given practicum.
Can an Indian Health Service clinician licensed in another state precept me?
Possibly. Arizona rule R4-19-502, as NAU prints it, lets a federal employee precept with any current unencumbered U.S. RN or physician license, rather than a license from the state where they practice. The year of experience, matching population focus and certification still apply, and the FNP Program Coordinator approves every preceptor before you start.
Does the IHS Extern Program place NAU nurse practitioner students?
IHS describes the Extern Program as clinical experience in an Indian health facility for IHS scholarship recipients and other health professions students. Its pages set out no route for NP students from outside schools. If an IHS clinic near you has a willing clinician, ask the facility how it handles student requests and share the answer with NAU's Clinical Placement Coordinator.
Who pays for gas and lodging when my clinical site is far away?
You do. NAU's 2022-23 FNP Clinical Guidelines make students responsible for all clinical immersion expenses, transportation and housing included, and note that overnight stays may be needed. Choosing a preceptor near home is the most direct way to keep those costs down across three practicums.
Can my NUR 689 project focus on the rural town where I live?
The catalog describes the project as meeting an identified health need in a rural community and leaves the choice of community unstated. A town you know well can give you access and local insight, but course faculty approve the topic and setting. Raise the idea early in the MS PMHNP so it can shape your planning.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Northern Arizona University's own catalog, program pages and published nursing documents. Your program coordinator and course faculty have the final word.
- Northern Arizona University Degree Search: Nursing, Advanced Practice (MS)
- Northern Arizona University FNP Clinical Guidelines AY 2022-23 (archived)
- Northern Arizona University Academic Catalog 2026-27: Nursing, Advanced Practice MS (archived)
- Tuba City Regional Health Care: Learning opportunities
- Indian Health Service: Nursing student opportunities (archived)
NAU welcomes a preceptor you arrange. We arrange one close to home.
Tell us your NAU track, your town and your next practicum. We line up preceptors who fit the course and Arizona's preceptor rule, confirm the site's approval, and gather the CV, license and certification the Green Form needs, well before NAU's cutoff.
- Preceptors matched to the course: all-ages family primary care for FNP, psychiatric settings for PMHNP
- License, experience and certification checked against the rule NAU applies, before the Green Form goes in
- All three FNP practicums planned together, near home instead of a long drive away
Start your placement plan
Track, town and next practicum is all we need to begin.