CUW's MSN AGPCNP: 750 hours of adult and older-adult primary care

Clinical courses, hours and focus

Clinical I waits on the three advanced foundation courses in pathophysiology, health assessment and pharmacotherapeutics; each later course needs the one before it. One catalog quirk is worth knowing: the Clinical II description repeats the FNP wording about problems across the life span. The track's population still applies, so plan adult and older-adult caseloads for all three courses.

The catalog gives only the 750-hour total. The even 250-hour split comes from CUW's progression plans, which label each clinical an 8-week course; the catalog grid leaves them untagged. Ask your faculty which length your section runs, because it decides whether your preceptor needs to offer two clinic days a week or closer to four.

Preceptor credentials, with dates

Today's catalog hands approval to graduate faculty and publishes no checklist, so the older documents fill in the picture. CUW's MSN FAQ from 2022 set two years in clinical practice as the bar, along with a state license and board certification. Back in 2014-15, the NP handbook opened the role to nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and physicians who had practiced for a year or more, required national certification of everyone but the physicians, and wanted 50 or more of the student's hours spent with an NP.

That handbook also held each preceptor to 400 program hours at most and allowed two preceptors a semester without extra approval, so the 750 hours were never meant to rest on one clinician. It kept students away from clinicians who treat them or their relatives, and off their own work unit. Where the one-year and two-year figures conflict, propose someone who clears two and let the Graduate Clinical Coordinator confirm.

Wisconsin sets its own floor for placements inside the state. Under N 1.08(6) of its nursing rules, a preceptor needs an unencumbered license or practice privilege in Wisconsin at the NP level or higher, plus the school faculty's approval. The complete list lives on CUW's preceptor rules page.

Why AGPCNP students choose our placement desk

Our search is built around the adult-gerontology population. We look for internal medicine and adult primary care practices near home for Clinicals I and II, and we start early on a practice with a strong older-adult caseload for NURS 7267. Every preceptor file carries the documents CUW's nursing faculty weigh (license, certification, CV and a description of the practice), so approval can move as soon as the proposal lands.

We also find out whether the practice already holds a clinical contract with CUW, so any new agreement can start weeks before your semester does, and we stay on call through all three courses in case a preceptor has to step away. Tell us your start term and city in the form below, and your placement advisor replies with a plan.