Clinical Track Issues for Adult/Gero Clinical Nurse Specialist Students

Clinical Placement - Individual faculty assigned to a specific course will coordinate placements for the AG/CNS students.  Please investigate potential sites and preceptors in the semester prior to enrollment and discuss your ideas with the course instructor for AG/CNS I, II or III.

Clinical Focus -- The clinical focus may be primary care in an internal medicine practice or VA outpatient clinic, or a specialty setting such as oncology, cardiology, pulmonary, women’s health, GU for men, etc. Acceptable preceptors can be clinical nurse specialists or nurse practitioners. AG/CNS students may split their clinical rotations into half semesters to allow a broad range of choices.

Age Range -- AG/CNS students will see patients from 18 to death with distribution in four categories: young adults (18-30s), middle age (40s-50s), older adults (60s-80s), and frail elders/LTC (80s-death). Students will have clinical experiences which expose them to the full array of both male and female patients.

Location -- Sites may be anywhere within approximately an hour's drive. Students are responsible for providing their own transportation to and from all clinical experiences. In general, clinical placements are available on Monday through Friday, from 8 to 5. It is necessary for students to have at least one day a week (M, T, R, F) available for their clinical experiences in AG I & II.  Wednesday can not be used due to conflicting AG classes.

Current work site -- We prefer that students not use clinical experiences for school at the same site where they are employed. This is unfair both to you and to your preceptor. It is difficult to function in the student role when the staff also expect you to do regular work duties.

Preceptorship (AG/CNS III) -- The final PC course is a capstone experience to pull together all earlier courses. Its purpose is to transition the student into the role of AG/CNS; it is not designed for job orientation (although it can be a plus if the site offers you a job). This course is a 5 credit hour clinical course (320 hours). You may work 5 days per week for 8 weeks or discuss other options in advance with the faculty assigned to teach the course. Please begin planning for this time commitment now. We suggest that you save money, vacation/leave time at your job for this course so that you can complete the required clinical with little to no working.

Clinical Hours – The AG/CNS program counts clinical hours as follows:

The minimum number of clinical hours required by American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), the certifying exam organization is 500 faculty supervised clinical hours. The Kansas Board of Nursing is considering setting the minimum at 500 hours also. We feel that you are getting a substantial amount. Although KU offers a combined Adult and Gerontological program, ANCC offers two separate credentialing exams, gerontological or medical-surgical.  The student may choose to take one or both examinations.