Clinical Placement Action Plan
Faculty are committed to students and their clinical education needs. VUSN has a dedicated Clinical Placement staff that administratively coordinates the clinical placement for all students. The faculty determine the adequacy of the site and whether the preceptor meets the requirements to ensure you receive the experiences necessary to prepare you in your area of specialty.
Due to regulatory requirements or a lack of available and appropriate preceptors, VUSN may not be able to accommodate clinical placements in all areas of the country. Please discuss your preferences with your specialty faculty to be sure you understand all possible options.
Clinical preceptors and/or agencies may require drug screening, fingerprinting, additional criminal background checks, or other requirements specific to that site. Costs associated with these processes are the responsibility of the student. Your Clinical Placement coordinator will notify you of any additional requirements associated with your rotation. You are responsible for lodging and transportation to and from all clinical facilities and field trips.
Faculty must approve any additional sites for your clinical experiences to ensure the sites are necessary or appropriate to your clinical objectives. The number of sites and contracts will be limited per student. Due to the large number of placements each term, requests for rotations for a minimal number of hours (typically less than 80) must be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis by your clinical faculty before an agreement is initiated.
You may not begin your clinical rotations until you have met all the site requirements and have received confirmation from your faculty and the Clinical Placement office that you are cleared to start.
Please choose the appropriate category
Your faculty will notify you when your clinical placement assignments are visible in Exxat and when you have been cleared to start prior to your rotation start date. Information is listed under My Placements in the left-hand menu. You’ll see contact information for your preceptor and any additional requirements the site might have for you to complete.
More detailed map available here
Clinical sites within a 150-mile radius from the School of Nursing are considered to be within this area. As a result, you may have rotations in Kentucky, Alabama, and east or west Tennessee, depending on the appropriateness of the site. Faculty take into consideration a number of factors in assigning students to sites, including home address, specialty needs, and clinical interests. The information in your student profile will help guide them.
You may not begin your clinical rotation until the placement is published and your faculty have confirmed your official start date.
As a reminder: Students are not to reach out to local sites to arrange their own placements. If you identify a possible local placement, contact your specialty director or course coordinator first; they will work with the Clinical Placement office staff to see if a placement is possible.
If you plan to complete clinical rotations outside the middle Tennessee area, the Clinical Placement staff, along with program faculty, will collaborate with you to secure quality clinical placements. After a site has been identified, Clinical Placement staff will work to secure all necessary contracts and paperwork.
Begin by reviewing the specialty-specific info on clinical placement on your specialty orientation page. Each specialty has information and resources to assist you in your placement search.
When you have identified an appropriate site/preceptor, submit the information through Exxat by clicking the My Activities link in the left-hand menu when you log in. This takes you to the My Request page; when you click that you will see your clinical courses listed.
Dates for My Requests to open in Exxat:
- Fall 2021 rotations: April 1
- Spring 2022 rotations: June 1
- Summer 2022 rotations: October 1
You will submit a request for each clinical course, even if you’re staying at the same site. This enables your faculty to appropriately vet your preceptors as per VUSN’s accreditation guidelines, and allows the Clinical Placement team to confirm the agreement is still current and there aren’t any additional requirements. This is also necessary since Exxat is where you’ll log patient encounters and your clinical hours for each course.
There is an OMTA Rotation Submission Manual under Resource Materials in the left-hand menu in Exxat, in addition to the general student manuals by specialty. This walks you through the steps necessary to submit your information for review.
Once the faculty have approved the preceptor and the site, the Clinical Placement Office will work with the site to ensure all necessary agreements are in place and determine if there are additional requirements you may need to complete before you can start your rotation. You can check for status updates for each request in Exxat, and the Clinical Placement Office will keep you updated on progress.
Once the placement is confirmed and you’ve been cleared, you’ll see the information in Exxat under My Placements. You may not begin your clinical rotation until the placement is published and you’ve been cleared by your faculty or the Clinical Placement Office has confirmed your official start date.
