Nurse practitioner clinicals in Laredo and the western border counties
Webb, Zapata and Jim Hogg counties hold about 300,000 people, most of them in Laredo, and neither Laredo hospital publishes a route for outside NP students. A UTRGV search here therefore runs through Gateway Community Health Center's clinics and independent practices, matched to your course before the Clinical Request Form clock starts.
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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.
Webb, Zapata and Jim Hogg at a glance
This guide takes the South Texas Development Council's counties minus Starr, which has its own guide. The Census Bureau's July 1, 2025 estimates give the three counties 299,532 residents: 281,224 in Webb, 13,753 in Zapata and 4,555 in Jim Hogg. Laredo accounts for 269,515 of them; the county seats of Zapata and Hebbronville are unincorporated towns.
Laredo is roughly 160 road miles from the Edinburg campus, and Zapata and Hebbronville about 100. MSN-FNP and post-master's FNP students who live here commute to class in Edinburg, which makes clinical days near home worth planning for, while online PMHNP certificate and DNP students can base their whole search here.
What Laredo's hospitals and clinics publish
The CMS hospital file lists two Medicare-certified hospitals in the region, both in Laredo and both Advanced (Level III) trauma facilities on the DSHS list. Neither has a page for nurse practitioner students; nor do the region's health center and VA clinic.
| Organization | What its pages say | How it was read |
|---|---|---|
| Laredo Medical Center | Its 2025 progress release cites awards from Community Health Systems and mentions adding a family nurse practitioner to its provider network. No student-rotation page or request process. | Live page |
| Doctors Hospital of Laredo | Owned by a partnership that includes physician owners. Its nursing pages cover recruitment and new RN graduates, with nothing on NP students. | Archived copy, February 2025; the live site was blocked |
| Gateway Community Health Center | Says it serves all residents of Webb, Zapata and Jim Hogg counties and runs a residency clinic. No NP-student page. | Live page |
| Laredo VA Clinic, VA Texas Valley Coastal Bend | Listed among the system's clinics; no NP-student process described. VA nursing trainees arrive through a school's VA academic affiliation. | Live locations page |
A hospital that says nothing about NP students has not said no. The opening is one clinician on staff willing to teach you; the hospital and UTRGV then settle whether an agreement can be signed.
Gateway's clinics and Laredo's private practices
Gateway Community Health Center is the only HRSA-funded health center organization with sites in these counties: 12 active service sites, ten in Webb County, one in Zapata and one in Hebbronville. Because it posts no student process, the approach runs through a Gateway clinician or clinic manager, and a Gateway site new to UTRGV then needs the affiliation paperwork before your first hour.
Independent family medicine, pediatric and internal medicine offices fill out the Laredo map, and each decides for itself whether to take a student. HRSA's facility designations also include one rural health clinic in the region, the kind of small-town primary care office that suits the rural health course.
Border and shortage data for the three counties
HRSA flags all three counties as U.S.-Mexico border counties. Zapata (rural-urban code 6) and Jim Hogg (code 8) are nonmetro and together hold about 6% of the region's residents; Webb is metro. For primary care, Jim Hogg is a county-wide high-needs shortage area scored 23 on HRSA's 0-to-25 scale and Zapata one scored 19, while Webb's designation covers parts of the county.
Every county also falls inside a single mental health shortage area, 'MHCA 6 - Border Region', scored 18. A 2024 DSHS poster puts 6.6% of the NPs working in Texas in 2023 in metro border counties like Webb and only 0.5% in nonmetro border counties like Zapata and Jim Hogg. For a PMHNP student, that leaves a short local list of clinicians who qualify under UTRGV's psychiatric rule, which admits board-certified psychiatrists and PMHNPs certified through ANCC, so the search should begin the term before hours start.
Matching UTRGV courses to Laredo-area sites
Under UTRGV's FNP syllabi the student lines up each preceptor, either from the approved preceptor and affiliated-site list posted in Brightspace (D2L) or by sending a new Laredo clinic through the Clinical Request Form, the step that starts an affiliation agreement; UTRGV's guidelines budget 30 to 90 days for it. Fit comes first:
| Course | Hours | What to look for here |
|---|---|---|
NURS 6305 Advanced Health Assessment | 45 | Direct patient care in a Laredo primary care clinic |
NURS 6310 Health Promotion | 45 (2022 syllabus) | Well visits for children and adults, pregnant patients included |
NURS 6311 Rural Health | 45 (2023 syllabus) | Primary care in nonmetro Zapata or Jim Hogg County |
NURS 6347 Role Development | 45 | Two master's-prepared NPs at two different sites, one student each |
NURS 6612 FNP I | 224 | A family practice seeing children and adults, 16 hours a week |
NURS 6613 FNP II | 336 | A full primary care schedule, 24 hours a week |
NURS 6476, NURS 6620 PMHNP | 220, 300 | An ABPN psychiatrist or ANCC PMHNP, outside your workplace |
| DNP project courses | 100 logged in NURS 8211 | An approved site with a physician or DNP-prepared APRN |
A block of hours counts for one course only, so a Laredo practice covering two courses needs two separate blocks. Laredo NPs prescribe under agreements with physicians, as Texas NP practice explains.
Why Laredo-area UTRGV students choose us
We begin with Laredo clinicians already on UTRGV's approved list, then reach Gateway sites and independent practices early enough for a new agreement to clear before your course starts. Every preceptor we bring you has agreed to your weekly hours, fits the course in the table above and arrives with the facts UTRGV's request form and preceptor agreement need. If a preceptor steps away mid-term, your placement advisor goes straight to a replacement; how it works walks through each step.
Questions UTRGV students ask
Can UTRGV FNP students do their clinicals in Laredo?
Yes, when UTRGV approves the site. Nothing UTRGV publishes limits FNP clinicals to the Valley, but you attend class in Edinburg, so check that clinic days fit around the drive. A Laredo site must already be on UTRGV's approved list or be added by Clinical Request Form early enough for its agreement to be signed.
Does Laredo Medical Center accept nurse practitioner students?
Its website does not say either way. The pages read for this guide showed no student-rotation page or request process, and archived pages for Doctors Hospital of Laredo were the same. The route is a clinician there who agrees to precept, with your course faculty confirming UTRGV can sign an agreement before you count on the hours.
Does UTRGV have a nursing campus in Laredo?
UTRGV lists Laredo among its locations, yet the School of Nursing names offices only in Edinburg and Brownsville, and the catalog offers the MSN-FNP at Edinburg alone. Both the PMHNP certificate and the DNP are taught 100% online, so students living in Webb County take those courses from home and look for clinical sites nearby.
Where do PMHNP students find a psychiatric preceptor near Laredo?
Look first at psychiatrists and psychiatric NPs in Laredo outpatient practices, then widen toward San Antonio if the local list runs short. UTRGV's rule allows two kinds of preceptor, a psychiatrist with ABPN board certification and over a year of practice since residency or a PMHNP holding ANCC certification, and your own employer is off the table. PMHNP placement assistance sets out what UTRGV says about helping.
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
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