Cameron and Willacy counties: clinical sites for UTRGV NP students
Brownsville and Harlingen give Cameron County a full set of hospitals, and Willacy County adds a rural stretch around Raymondville. Of the hospital operators, only Valley Baptist and DHR Health publish student rules outside physician training, and neither describes finding an NP preceptor, so practices and health centers are where most searches here succeed.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your UTRGV program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options in your community that fit your UTRGV course.
Brownsville, Harlingen and rural Willacy
Cameron County counted 433,946 residents on July 1, 2025 and Willacy County 19,971, together about 1.4% of Texas. Brownsville (192,957) leads, then Harlingen (72,467), San Benito (24,980) and Raymondville (10,082). USDA's 2023 codes rate Cameron metropolitan and Willacy nonmetro, and HRSA flags both as border counties.
The School of Nursing keeps a Brownsville office in the Life and Health Sciences Building, and the BSN runs on both campuses. The MSN-FNP meets only in Edinburg, so FNP students here commute for class: Harlingen and Raymondville sit roughly 40 road miles from the Edinburg campus, San Benito about 45 and Brownsville about 65.
Hospital rules in Cameron County, as each publishes them
CMS lists six Medicare-certified hospitals across the two counties, four acute care and two psychiatric; DHR Health Brownsville is not yet among them. Rows summarize each hospital's website as read in September 2026, live or archived as marked.
| Hospital | Owner | What its site says about students | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valley Baptist Medical Center, Harlingen and Brownsville | Tenet Healthcare | Online VBMC orientation plus attestations (drug screen, background check, BLS, insurance, immunizations); the clinical instructor returns them to the Education department two weeks before clinicals. Nothing on NP preceptors. | Archived copy, September 2025 |
| DHR Health Brownsville | DHR Health, physician-owned | DHR's Student Affairs rules: affiliate or partner schools only, and DHR does not assign preceptors. No official opening date found. | Live page |
| Valley Regional Medical Center, Brownsville | HCA Healthcare | DAISY nominations, affiliations and careers; no student route. | Archived copy, May 2026 |
| Harlingen Medical Center | Prime Healthcare Services; 112 beds | A medical student page covering an internal medicine residency schedule; nothing for nursing students. | Live page |
| Rio Grande State Center, Harlingen | Texas HHSC; state psychiatric hospital | No student information found; HHSC's page, per a search summary, describes an outpatient clinic for adults from the four Valley counties. | Search summary only |
Valley Baptist's checklist reaches past UTRGV's published graduate rules, which name no drug-screen or CPR requirement, so a preceptor based there may bring hospital paperwork with them; the compliance checklist shows UTRGV's own list. Valley Regional hosts UTRGV School of Medicine internal medicine residents, which is physician education, not nursing.
Health centers, UT Health RGV and VA care
HRSA's file shows two health center organizations with nine active sites here. Su Clínica Familiar, based in Harlingen, has four in Cameron County (Harlingen, Brownsville and Santa Rosa) and one in Raymondville, the only HRSA health center site in Willacy. Brownsville Community Health Clinic Corporation has four, in Brownsville and Laguna Vista. Su Clínica posts no student rotation page, so an introduction to one of its clinicians comes first.
The medical school's clinical practice, UT Health RGV, sees patients in Harlingen and Brownsville, and nursing students in UTRGV's AHEC scholars program train at the program's Brownsville center, according to the AHEC page. No route for ordinary course hours is published, so ask your course faculty.
The Harlingen VA Health Care Center anchors VA Texas Valley Coastal Bend, which adds a Treasure Hills clinic in Harlingen and one in Brownsville. Its public training page covers a psychology internship only; nursing trainees arrive under an affiliation between their school and VA's Office of Academic Affiliations.
Shortage data for Cameron and Willacy
Both counties fall wholly inside the same HRSA mental health shortage area as Hidalgo, Tropical Texas (MHCA 38), scored 14. For primary care, Willacy is a county-wide low-income shortage area scoring 18, while Cameron's designations cover only some census tracts. DSHS describes the wider Texas border region as 27% uninsured, against 17% in the rest of the state.
Those labels shape the search. Willacy's nonmetro status makes Raymondville a natural NURS 6311 setting if you live in Cameron County. PMHNP certificate students have psychiatric settings close by, with CMS listing two psychiatric hospitals in Harlingen (the state center and Palms Behavioral Health), yet UTRGV's credential rule narrows the field to ABPN psychiatrists and ANCC-certified PMHNPs, and your employer is off limits.
UTRGV courses and Cameron-Willacy sites
Whatever the course, UTRGV's FNP syllabi expect you to line up the preceptor and site, either from the approved roster in Brightspace or by putting a new clinic forward on the Clinical Request Form, which lets UTRGV negotiate an affiliation agreement; its PMHNP guidance allows 30 to 90 days for that.
| Course | Hours | Where it fits here |
|---|---|---|
NURS 6305 Health Assessment | 45 | A primary care clinic: a health center site or family practice |
NURS 6310 Health Promotion | 45 (2022 syllabus) | Pediatric, family and prenatal practices |
NURS 6311 Rural Health | 45 (2023 syllabus) | Willacy County, including Su Clínica's Raymondville site |
NURS 6347 Role Development | 45 | Two master's-prepared NPs at two sites; the Summer 2025 syllabus added Operation Border Health at Los Fresnos High School |
NURS 6612 FNP I | 224 | A family practice treating children and adults, 16 hours a week |
NURS 6613 FNP II | 336 | Primary care near home with room for 24 hours a week |
NURS 6476, NURS 6620 (PMHNP) | 220, 300 | ABPN psychiatrist or ANCC-certified PMHNP |
| DNP project courses | 100 logged in NURS 8211 | Approved site; physician or DNP-prepared APRN preceptor |
The NURS 6347 guide covers the Los Fresnos event, and the MSN-FNP page puts these courses in program order.
Why Cameron and Willacy students choose us
Living in Brownsville or Harlingen means class days in Edinburg, so a clinical site close to home is worth real effort, and that is the search we specialize in. We start with sites already on UTRGV's approved list, reach new practices early enough for an agreement, and line up a preceptor suited to the course, the weekly hours and the forms UTRGV requires. Send your request and your placement advisor handles the rest.
Questions UTRGV students ask
Does Valley Baptist accept UTRGV nurse practitioner students?
Its student orientation page, seen in an archived September 2025 copy, is written for school clinical groups and says nothing about NP students, preceptors or agreements. The practical route is a Valley Baptist clinician who agrees to precept you; your course faculty can then confirm whether an agreement covers the site. Expect the hospital's orientation and attestations on top of UTRGV's own list.
Is DHR Health Brownsville an option for my clinical hours?
DHR lists the Brownsville hospital among its locations, though no official opening date was found and CMS does not yet list it separately. DHR's student rules apply there too: affiliate or partner schools only, with the school's coordinator securing the preceptor before a rotation is requested. A DHR clinician who agrees to teach is the starting point.
I live in Brownsville. Must my FNP clinicals be near Edinburg?
No UTRGV source we reviewed requires FNP clinicals near Edinburg; what matters is that each site is approved before hours count. A Brownsville or Harlingen practice works once it is on the approved list or has cleared the Clinical Request Form. Class days still mean the drive west, so clinical days near home save the most time.
Can I train at the Harlingen VA as a UTRGV NP student?
VA takes nursing trainees under a school's academic affiliation, and whether UTRGV holds one covering NP students is not published. Ask your course faculty before approaching a VA clinician in Harlingen or Brownsville, since the affiliation has to exist before any VA hours can count.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against UTRGV's own catalog, course syllabi, School of Nursing pages and Texas Board of Nursing rules. Your course faculty and the School of Nursing have the final word.
From the approved list or a brand-new site, we find the preceptor who fits.
Tell us your UTRGV program, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We line up a willing preceptor who fits the course and UTRGV's rules, and hand you the details the Clinical Request Form, the affiliation agreement and the preceptor agreement ask for, well before the semester.
- Family practice preceptors for
NURS 6612andNURS 6613, and two NP sites forNURS 6347 - Board-certified psychiatric preceptors for
NURS 6476andNURS 6620, in your home state - Across the Valley and Texas, from McAllen and Brownsville to San Antonio, Houston and beyond
- A replacement lined up fast if a preceptor drops
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.