Your preceptor dropped out. What to do at NAU
If your preceptor leaves partway through NUR 661, NUR 663, NUR 665 or NUR 680, pause clinical time, tell course faculty and NAU's placement staff the same day, and begin the replacement search at once. NAU publishes no policy for a preceptor who withdraws, so the way back is the approval route you already know: a new qualified preceptor, a Green Form, and approval before you see patients again.
Replace a preceptor quickly
Tell us your practicum, hours logged and weeks left. Your placement advisor starts on a replacement right away.
The first 48 hours
- Pause patient careNAU's 2022-23 FNP guidelines say students are not allowed in the clinical setting without the preceptor present. Hold off on continuing with another clinician at the site until NAU approves that person.
- Bring your log up to dateRecord every completed hour and patient encounter in the tracking system your course uses (Typhon in the 2022-23 guidelines, Exxat in some later NAU mentions), so the record shows exactly where you stopped.
- Tell course facultyCourse faculty oversee your clinical experience and serve as NAU's liaison with the agency. Give them the news yourself, with dates and hours.
- Tell the placement staffLet the Clinical Placement Coordinator and the FNP Program Coordinator know the placement has ended, so a replacement request can start immediately.
- Request an evaluationIf the departing preceptor agrees, ask whether they can complete an evaluation covering the time you spent together. Your faculty will say what NAU needs from them.
Resume patient care only after NAU approves the new preceptor and tells you that you may begin.
Why a stand-in clinician is not the answer
It is tempting to protect your schedule by working with a colleague at the same clinic. Under NAU's process, though, the FNP Program Coordinator approves every preceptor, and the 2022-23 guidelines expect that approval before clinical time begins. A colleague who has not been approved is not yet your preceptor, however qualified.
NAU's older undergraduate capstone handbook asked preceptors to line up a qualified backup, but that rule was written for BSN preceptorships. The graduate guidelines contain no backup-preceptor provision, so the safe course for an NP student is a formal replacement.
That colleague can still be the quickest fix. If they meet Arizona's rule as NAU applies it and the site's agreement with NAU is already in place, the paperwork may come down to a new Green Form and their CV, license and certification.
Count what you have and what you still need
Before choosing a replacement, know exactly what it has to cover. Subtract your logged hours from the practicum total, 180 for NUR 661 or 300 each for NUR 663 and NUR 665, then count the weekdays left in the term, since weekend, holiday and break clinicals need approval in advance.
Then look at the categories. NAU's recommended FNP split includes pediatric and women's health hours and minimum counts for certain exams. If the preceptor who left was your main source of children or prenatal visits, the replacement needs to supply them. PMHNP students should confirm hour and population expectations with their program coordinator, because NAU publishes no PMHNP hour total.
Behind on clinical hours works through the catch-up math, and the FNP hour mix lists the categories.
Getting the replacement approved
A replacement follows the same steps as any new preceptor. You or our desk identify the clinician, a Green Form goes in, the preceptor sends a CV or resume, license and certification, and the FNP Program Coordinator approves. NAU then tells you when you may resume.
Where the replacement practices sets the timeline. At a site that already holds an NAU agreement, approval can move quickly. A new site needs an affiliation agreement first, and NAU's 2021-22 form warned that can take from days to months, while large health systems add onboarding windows of their own. In a mid-term emergency, a qualified clinician at an independent practice, or at a site NAU already knows, is usually the shortest path. The Green Form page covers what to include.
If the term runs short
If the replacement leaves too few weeks to finish, talk with course faculty about options before the term ends rather than after. NAU's graduate handbook leaves incompletes to Graduate College policy, so ask faculty whether one fits your situation. Bring them a written plan: the replacement's likely start date, the weekly hours you can manage and the date you expect to finish.
Keep the progression rules in view: NAU's AY 21-22 graduate handbook put the pass line for MS-FNP and certificate courses at 84 percent, with a C or lower meaning a repeat. The FNP practicums also run in sequence, each requiring the one before, so an unfinished practicum can hold up the next. Delayed graduation shows how a slip can carry into the following year and how to limit it.
How we cover a preceptor gap
Because your placement advisor stays reachable through every practicum we arrange, a preceptor's exit starts a replacement search right away. We look first at options that keep paperwork short, such as another qualified clinician in the same practice or a nearby site NAU may already know, and check each one against the state preceptor standard NAU uses.
We match the replacement to the hours and categories you still need, collect the CV, license and certification, confirm the site's approval and prepare the Green Form, so NAU has a complete request quickly. Then we recheck the plan for your next practicum so the disruption stays inside one term. Reach your placement advisor with your hours logged and the weeks you have left.
Questions NAU students ask
Is there an NAU rule for a preceptor who withdraws?
None that NAU publishes. The 2022-23 FNP guidelines, the newest graduate clinical guidelines available, cover preceptor approval and supervision but not a preceptor who withdraws mid-term. Course faculty and the FNP Program Coordinator decide how the rest of your practicum proceeds, so bring them your logged hours and, if you can, a proposed replacement.
What happens to the hours I already completed?
NAU's published guidelines say nothing specific about this, so ask course faculty how your completed hours will be treated. Make it easy for them to answer: have your log current, with dates, hours and patient encounters, and ask the departing preceptor for an evaluation of the time you worked together.
Can my preceptor's colleague take over right away?
Only after approval. The FNP Program Coordinator approves every preceptor, so the colleague must satisfy the state preceptor standard and send a CV, license and certification with a new Green Form. If the site's agreement with NAU is already in place, that can be one of the faster replacements.
Should I tell NAU if my preceptor is only cutting back my days?
Yes. Fewer days can leave you short of 180 or 300 hours as surely as a departure can. Tell course faculty early, work out the weekly hours you now need, and consider adding a second approved preceptor. Weekend or break clinicals need a sign-off from the FNP Program Coordinator beforehand.
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.
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.