No preceptor yet for your UTRGV clinical course: this week's plan
Tell your course coordinator or clinical faculty this week, go back through UTRGV's approved list with exact dates, and file a Clinical Request Form for any promising clinic off the list, since a new agreement can take 30 to 90 days. Then widen the map to community health centers, the rest of the Valley and, for PMHNP students, your whole home state. Here is the order, with the UTRGV rules behind each step.
Get a second search running
Send your course, your dates and the practices you have already tried, and a placement advisor starts from there.
First, tell your course coordinator or clinical faculty
Faculty cannot approve a site they have not heard of, and they can only plan around a gap they know about. FNP students should write to the course coordinator of the upcoming course, the person who approves sites in NURS 6347 and receives weekly time reports in NURS 6612 and NURS 6613. PMHNP certificate students write to their assigned clinical faculty member, who clears each site before hours start.
Keep the message short and concrete: the course and term, the practices you have tried and their answers, and the towns you can reach. UTRGV's archived 2023-24 graduate guide called preceptor recruitment a joint job for faculty and student, and PMHNP students can ask what the flyer's placement assistance offers right now. Ask about any course deadline for naming a preceptor too; the Summer 2025 NURS 6347 calendar carried one in mid-June.
Work UTRGV's approved list a second time
A second pass through the Brightspace list is worth the calls. A listed clinic already has its agreement with UTRGV, so it can start you without the new-site wait. Lead with specifics this time: the course number, your first and last clinical weeks, and the load, 16 hours a week in NURS 6612 or 24 in NURS 6613.
Ask for more than one clinician at each practice. FNP courses accept an NP, a PA or an MD/DO, so a clinic whose NP is full may have a physician or PA with room. A family practice treating both children and adults fits NURS 6612; a busy primary care schedule fits the 336 hours of NURS 6613. The approved list guide explains how to read the list's entries.
Open a new site through the Clinical Request Form now
When a clinician off the list agrees, file that same week. The Clinical Request Form (version 12-24, archived) names the facility, the official who approves its agreements, the preceptor and the initiating faculty member, and FNP students pair it with a Typhon data sheet for an NP, PA or physician.
Completeness decides the pace. UTRGV's PMHNP guidelines allow between 30 and 90 days when an agreement's information is accurate and complete, and a clinic that insists on its own contract, a non-standard agreement, adds review by a UTRGV authorizing official. By our arithmetic, a request for a Spring 2027 course that is complete by October 21, 2026 keeps the full 90 days before classes open on January 19. The Clinical Request Form guide covers each field.
Community health centers and a wider map
For a primary care course, clinics beat hospitals. DHR Health in Edinburg and Brownsville takes rotating students only from its affiliate or partner institutions and says it does not assign preceptors, and most other Valley hospitals publish no route for NP students at all.
Federally qualified health centers see the broad mix of patients FNP courses ask for. Nuestra Clínica del Valle serves Hidalgo and Starr counties, Su Clínica Familiar has sites in Harlingen, Brownsville, Santa Rosa and Raymondville, and Gateway Community Health Center serves Laredo. None posts a student rotation page, so ask for the medical director or a named clinician rather than a general inbox.
Then stretch the radius. From Edinburg, Harlingen is roughly 40 road miles, Rio Grande City about 55 and Brownsville about 65, by our approximate routing. FNP clinicals stay in Texas in practice, since the program is taught in Edinburg and asks for a Texas RN license, though no written rule says so. PMHNP students can search their entire state of residence, as long as the preceptor holds ABPN or ANCC certification and the site is not their workplace. The Texas region guides map each area.
A checklist for this week
Work down the list in order, noting every contact and answer.
- Email your course coordinator or clinical faculty: course, term, practices tried, towns you can reach.
- Call every listed practice within a realistic drive, asking for any NP, PA or physician with room.
- Refresh your CV and keep the course objectives ready to send, since the preceptor agreement shares them with your preceptor.
- Confirm Typhon access, immunizations, liability insurance and HIPAA training are current, so a yes is not held up by your own file.
- Start a Clinical Request Form for any willing clinician off the list.
- Call community health centers and independent practices in the next ring of towns.
- Send us your course and dates so a second search runs beside yours.
If the term starts before a preceptor does
Each week without a preceptor is a week of hours to make up. By our arithmetic, 16 hours a week over 14 weeks is exactly the 224 of NURS 6612, and 24 a week gives exactly the 336 of NURS 6613, so the schedules hold no spare week. Passing takes every hour plus a satisfactory preceptorship grade.
Speeding up later is not automatic either: finishing ahead of schedule is allowed only for a legitimate reason, with the course coordinator's say-so beforehand. Put the gap and your plan to close it in writing, and read behind on clinical hours for the catch-up rules. PMHNP students cannot begin clinical hours until their clinical faculty clears the site, so the same urgency applies.
How our placement desk helps this week
Send us your UTRGV program, the course, your dates and the practices you have already contacted. We start with listed clinics near you that nobody has asked yet, move on to community health centers and independent practices, and for PMHNP students reach board-certified psychiatric clinicians across your state. Each preceptor who agrees comes back to you with the facility and credential details the Clinical Request Form and preceptor agreement need, ready for faculty review. If one of your own leads comes through first, we keep a second option in reserve as a backup, so a late change at that clinic does not stall your course. Begin with the request form.
Questions UTRGV students ask
Will UTRGV find a preceptor for me if I cannot?
The Spring 2026 NURS 6305 syllabus puts the arranging on FNP students, with the approved list and the Clinical Request Form as the tools, while the archived graduate guide described recruiting as shared with faculty. For PMHNP students, the live flyer lists placement assistance without defining it. Ask your faculty directly what help exists for your course.
Can my employer's clinic be my clinical site?
For the PMHNP certificate, no: the archived FAQ says the practicum cannot take place at your place of employment. UTRGV publishes no workplace rule for the FNP courses, so ask your course coordinator before counting on your own clinic. Any site still needs UTRGV approval and a qualified NP, PA or physician preceptor.
Can I start hours while the new agreement is pending?
No. Only approved sites count, and the Clinical Request Form itself ties the start of clinical practice to an authorized agreement and to presenting your course objectives. The PMHNP syllabi add that clinical cannot start before your clinical faculty clears the site, so hours worked earlier risk not counting at all.
Does telepsychiatry help a PMHNP student with no local preceptor?
Partly. UTRGV allows some of the 520 hours by telepsychiatry, but its sources disagree on the cap: the archived FAQ says 75 hours, while the Spring 2026 NURS 6620 syllabus says 220. Confirm the current figure with your clinical faculty; telepsychiatry hours sets out the conflict.
Is a DNP project site handled the same way?
Partly. DNP sources name nobody as the finder, but NURS 8211 carries out the project at an approved site, and NURS 8512 asks for affiliation agreement forms, a preceptor data sheet naming a physician, a DNP-prepared APRN or both, and a preceptor agreement. A site new to UTRGV therefore faces the same agreement lead time.
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.