Clinical hours in NURS 6305, 6310 and 6311
Three MSN-FNP core courses carry 45 clinical hours each: NURS 6305 Advanced Health Assessment, NURS 6310 Advanced Practice Health Promotion and NURS 6311 Advanced Practice Rural Health Nursing. The catalog lists them as lecture and lab courses without hours, so the figures come from syllabi, and the newest public syllabi for NURS 6310 and NURS 6311 date from 2022 and 2023.
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Three core courses with a clinical piece
The MSN-FNP's 30-credit core has ten courses, and most of them stay in the classroom. Three send you into clinic, each for 45 hours by its syllabus, which comes to 135 hours before the specialty sequence begins (our arithmetic). They are MSN courses only. The post-master's FNP certificate admits nurses who already hold equivalents of advanced health assessment, pharmacology and pathophysiology from the last three years, and starts them at NURS 6347.
| Course | Hours | Source for the hours | Focus in the 2026-27 catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 6305 Advanced Health Assessment | 45 | Spring 2026 syllabus | Theory tested in the laboratory setting |
NURS 6310 Advanced Practice Health Promotion | 45 | Fall 2022 syllabus | Essentially healthy children and adults, pregnant women included |
NURS 6311 Advanced Practice Rural Health Nursing | 45 | 2023 syllabus | Primary health care in rural settings |
Every program's hours, with the totals and the conflicts between them, are gathered on the clinical hours hub.
NURS 6305: 45 hours in a primary care clinic
The Spring 2026 NURS 6305 syllabus asks for 45 clinical hours of direct patient care in a primary care clinic, on top of the course lab in the Health Affairs Building East in Edinburg. Its header marks the hours as arranged by the student, and the syllabus puts finding the preceptor and the site on you, following the course guidelines, with a current list of approved preceptors posted in Brightspace.
A clinic that is missing from that list can still work once UTRGV has an affiliation agreement with it, a process that begins with the Clinical Request Form. When your preceptor is settled, the preceptor agreement goes to your assigned lab instructor at least a week before your first clinical day. Faculty make random site visits during the course, so keep your schedule and time report current.
Health assessment is often the first time an MSN student needs a preceptor. Give yourself the whole semester before NURS 6305 to find one: UTRGV's guidelines put a new affiliation agreement at 30 to 90 days.
NURS 6310: health promotion hours
The newest public NURS 6310 syllabus is from Fall 2022, and it requires 45 clinical hours to complete the course. The catalog frames the course around essentially healthy children and adults, pregnant women included, so the hours fit a practice that sees well visits, screenings and prenatal care as well as sick visits. That reading of a good fit is ours; the syllabus for your own term has the final word.
NURS 6310 matters beyond its own hours. The 2026-27 catalog makes it the prerequisite for NURS 6347, the role course that opens the FNP specialty sequence, so a delay here can push back every course after it. Confirm the hour figure with your course faculty in the first week, since the most recent syllabus we could read is four years old.
NURS 6311: rural health hours
The 2023 NURS 6311 syllabus also sets 45 clinical hours. The catalog builds the course around primary health care in rural settings, with an emphasis on Mexican-American culture, and lists it beside NURS 6347 as a prerequisite for NURS 6612. The same syllabus reminded students that faculty can visit sites at random.
Neither the catalog nor the syllabus says which sites count as rural, and your course faculty decide whether a clinic fits. Within driving distance of Edinburg, USDA's 2023 rural-urban codes class Starr County and Willacy County, covered in our Cameron and Willacy guide, as nonmetro, so clinics in Rio Grande City, Roma or Raymondville are sensible places to start asking. Settle the site early, because NURS 6612 cannot begin until NURS 6311 is done.
One hour, one course
The NURS 6310 and NURS 6311 syllabi both state that clinical hours may not be counted toward a second clinical course you are enrolled in at the same time. An afternoon in clinic belongs to one course, and your log has to show which.
That matters on the 2019 full-time plan, which pairs NURS 6310 with NURS 6612 in the second fall and NURS 6311 with NURS 6613 in the final spring. In those terms you carry 45 core hours on top of 224 or 336 specialty hours, every one logged to a single course. If one preceptor hosts you for both, keep the days or blocks clearly separate and ask your course coordinators how they want the hours recorded. The complete set of counting rules is in rules for counting hours.
Where the three courses fall on the 2019 plan
UTRGV's only published MSN-FNP program of study begins in Fall 2019. It runs five semesters full time or eight part time and places the three courses like this:
| Course | Full time (5 semesters) | Part time (8 semesters) | Role in the 2026-27 catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 6305 | Year 1 spring | Year 2 spring | Needs graduate standing only |
NURS 6310 | Year 2 fall, beside NURS 6612 | Year 1 fall | Prerequisite for NURS 6347 |
NURS 6311 | Year 2 spring, beside NURS 6613 | Year 1 spring | Prerequisite for NURS 6612 |
The full-time column no longer matches the current catalog. It puts NURS 6347 in the first summer, ahead of NURS 6310, and NURS 6612 ahead of NURS 6311, the reverse of today's prerequisites. The part-time order does fit. Every MSN student is assigned an advisor for the program of study, so ask yours for your cohort's current sequence before you commit to preceptors. The MSN-FNP guide covers the rest of the program.
How we line up core-course preceptors
Core-course hours are short, and that is exactly why they get left late. Our placement desk gives them the same care as a specialty placement: a primary care preceptor for NURS 6305 with the agreement ready for your lab instructor well before the one-week mark, a practice with well-child, adult screening and prenatal visits for NURS 6310, and a clinic outside the metro areas for NURS 6311.
We check each site against UTRGV's approved list first. When a site is new, we gather the facility and preceptor details the Clinical Request Form asks for, so the affiliation can start early. Tell us your term and courses in the form below, and we plan your core hours together with the specialty courses that follow, so each preceptor fits the course the hours are logged to.
Questions UTRGV students ask
Do post-master's FNP certificate students take NURS 6305?
No. The certificate is three courses, NURS 6347, NURS 6612 and NURS 6613. Applicants need earlier courses equivalent to UTRGV's advanced health assessment, pharmacology and pathophysiology, completed within the last three years, and a gap analysis of the transcript can add coursework. Certified APRNs in some specialties may have those courses waived. The FNP certificate guide has the details.
Does NURS 6305 lab time count toward the 45 clinical hours?
The Spring 2026 syllabus describes the 45 hours as direct patient care in a primary care clinic, apart from the course lab in Edinburg, so plan on lab sessions not counting toward them. That reading is ours, and your lab instructor can confirm it at the start of the term.
Who can precept NURS 6305, 6310 or 6311 hours?
UTRGV's FNP syllabi describe qualified and approved preceptors who are nurse practitioners, physician assistants or physicians (MD or DO), at sites UTRGV has approved. The narrower rule of two master's-prepared NPs applies only to NURS 6347. Check any preceptor against the approved list in Brightspace before you agree on dates.
Are NURS 6310 and 6311 still 45 clinical hours?
The newest public syllabi, Fall 2022 for NURS 6310 and 2023 for NURS 6311, both say 45, and the catalog lists no hours for either course. Read the syllabus for your own term in Brightspace during the first week, and plan on 45 unless it says otherwise.
When should I start looking for a NURS 6305 preceptor?
In the semester before the course. A clinic new to UTRGV needs an affiliation agreement first, and UTRGV's guidelines allow 30 to 90 days for one. The preceptor agreement is then due to your lab instructor a week before clinical begins, so a late start leaves very little room.
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.
- UTRGV graduate catalog 2026-27: NURS 6305 Advanced Health Assessment
- UTRGV graduate catalog 2026-27: NURS 6310 Advanced Practice Health Promotion
- UTRGV graduate catalog 2026-27: NURS 6311 Advanced Practice Rural Health Nursing
- UTRGV graduate catalog 2026-27: Family Nurse Practitioner (MSN)
- UTRGV MSN-FNP program of study, starting Fall 2019 (PDF)
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.
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