The Lewis PMHNP certificate
Lewis's Psychiatric-Mental Health NP Certificate of Advanced Study is 31 credits, and Lewis offers it online only. The classes come to you, but the three psychiatric practicums, NURS 63300, NURS 63500 and NURS 63700 at 180 clock hours each, happen in person with a preceptor you help identify. We find psychiatric preceptors near you who suit each one.
Find your psychiatric preceptors
Tell us where you live and which PMHNP practicum comes first.
The certificate course by course
The PMHNP certificate is the largest of Lewis's four NP certificates. It keeps the NP specialty core and the complete psychiatric sequence from the MSN track and leaves out the MSN core you completed in your master's. Lewis launched its PMHNP program in fall 2019.
| Course | Title | Credits | Practicum hours |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 58800 | Role Transition and Development for the Advanced Practice Nurse | 1 | None |
NURS 60500 | Applied Physiology/Pathophysiology for Advanced Practice Nursing | 3 | None |
NURS 60400 | Pharmacotherapeutics for Advanced Practice Nursing | 3 | None |
NURS 60700 | Health Assessment for Advanced Practice Nursing | 3 | Lab |
NURS 63000 | Psychopharmacology for Advanced Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing | 3 | None |
NURS 63200 | PMHNP 1: Psychiatric Assessment and Diagnosis Across the Lifespan | 3 | None |
NURS 63300 | PMHNP Practicum 1: Assessment and Diagnosis Across the Lifespan | 3 | 180 |
NURS 63400 | PMHNP 2: Introduction to Psychotherapy for Advanced Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing | 3 | None |
NURS 63500 | PMHNP Practicum 2: Introduction to Psychotherapy for Advanced Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing | 3 | 180 |
NURS 63600 | PMHNP 3: Implementation of Pharmacotherapy for Advanced Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing | 3 | None |
NURS 63700 | PMHNP Practicum 3: Implementation of Pharmacotherapy for Advanced Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing | 3 | 180 |
The course list gives credit ranges for two practicums, 1.5 to 3 for NURS 63500 and 1 to 3 for NURS 63700, while the certificate table fixes each at 3. Plan from the certificate table, and ask your advisor if a section you register for shows fewer credits.
Three practicums, three different jobs for a preceptor
Each practicum runs in the same 16-week semester as its companion course, and Lewis describes all three as covering the lifespan. Their clinical focus changes, though, and so does the kind of practice that serves you best. The suggestions below are our matching judgment; the track faculty approve the final choice.
NURS 63300withNURS 63200, assessment and diagnosis: look for a preceptor who performs full psychiatric evaluations, such as an outpatient psychiatric practice or community mental health program with steady new-patient intakes.NURS 63500withNURS 63400, introduction to psychotherapy: the preceptor's day should include therapy you can observe and gradually practice, not only short medication checks.NURS 63700withNURS 63600, implementation of pharmacotherapy: this is the prescribing semester and the last in the sequence, so a busy medication-management practice fits well.
Course-by-course detail for all three is on the PMHNP practicums page, and the degree version of the track is covered on the MSN PMHNP page.
The order Lewis sets
Prerequisites fix the sequence. NURS 63000 Psychopharmacology follows the specialty core, and NURS 63600, the last of the companion courses, requires NURS 63000 plus NURS 63200 through NURS 63500. Practicum 3 is therefore always your last clinical semester, and it is the one where your preceptor's prescribing practice matters most. NURS 63000 itself comes only after the three foundation courses, NURS 60400, NURS 60500 and NURS 60700, so any transfer decisions on those shape how soon the psychiatric sequence can begin.
Lewis publishes no semester-by-semester plan for the certificate, so settle with your advisor early how your three practicums fall across terms. Each practicum semester needs its own approved contract before it begins. The review in the preceptor contract portal takes a minimum of two weeks, and it stretches further if Lewis and the agency have never signed an affiliation agreement and one must be drafted first.
Online classes, in-person practicums
Online only describes the coursework. The practicum hours are in person, with a psychiatric preceptor at an agency that either has an affiliation agreement with Lewis or signs a new one. Where you live is part of the plan from the first day. Since the hands-on side of an online certificate happens almost entirely at those sites, the quality of your three placements shapes most of your psychiatric clinical training.
Lewis's March 2026 disclosure for the PMHNP certificate authorizes enrollment in 18 jurisdictions. Four of those, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts and Mississippi, carry a No in the licensure column. Hawaii, flagged on the MSN table, is marked as meeting requirements on the certificate table. Keep your RN license current in Illinois or wherever you practice, and know that an out-of-state site can need extra permission; practicums outside Illinois explains who grants it. Wherever the site is, your CastleBranch requirements must stay current, since Lewis's contract legend names CastleBranch noncompliance as grounds for denial.
Why psychiatric preceptors take longer to find
The pool is smaller. In IDFPR's 2024 survey of Illinois APRNs with full practice authority, 16% reported practicing in psychiatric/mental health. That survey covers one slice of the workforce, but it signals a narrow field, and you need three psychiatric placements lasting a full semester each. That is why Lewis's advice to start practicum planning at acceptance matters even more on this track.
Hospital-based behavioral health adds its own calendar. Linden Oaks Behavioral Health is on Lewis's list of clinical agencies and is now part of Endeavor Health. According to Endeavor's nursing clinical rotations page, requests go through myClinicalExchange, and it sets two cutoffs a year: March 1 for fall and winter placements, August 1 for spring and summer. A request that reaches a system after its deadline can wait a full cycle.
An online certificate does not mean a remote preceptor search. Lewis's faculty approve a named preceptor at a named site for each practicum, and every one of those sites has to be under contract with Lewis before you log an hour.
How we match PMHNP certificate students
- Map the three practicumsWe note the semester each practicum falls in and what its focus asks of a preceptor: diagnosis, psychotherapy or prescribing.
- Search psychiatric practices near youWe contact psychiatric NPs, psychiatric physicians and behavioral health programs in your area, favoring practices whose panels include young patients alongside adults, since Lewis frames every practicum across the lifespan.
- Prepare the contract requestYou receive the preceptor's details, the site's details and your semester dates in the shape the portal asks for, so the request goes in complete.
- Stay on call through the semesterWe keep agency onboarding and CastleBranch items on track and line up a backup if a preceptor's schedule changes mid-term.
Use the request form to tell us when your first psychiatric practicum starts; your placement advisor begins with the practice types that course calls for.
Questions Lewis students ask
Can a certified FNP complete Lewis's PMHNP certificate?
Yes, if you meet the certificate admission rules: an MSN, an unencumbered RN license and a 3.0 graduate GPA among them. With national certification and 1,000 APRN clinical hours in the past five years, you may transfer courses such as health assessment, pathophysiology, pharmacology and role transition, up to 12 credits. All three psychiatric practicums still apply. The certificates overview covers transfer in full.
Does Lewis publish PMHNP certification pass rates?
Not so far. The only NP pass rates on Lewis's MSN page are 2023 figures for FNP and AGACNP graduates, and the page is silent on which board PMHNP graduates sit for. Certification exams by track lists what Lewis does report and where each population's exam comes from.
How many clinical hours does the PMHNP certificate require?
Each psychiatric practicum carries 180 clock hours in the course descriptions, so three of them total 540 by our arithmetic. That lines up with the 540-hour minimum for the MSN PMHNP track and sits inside the 540 to 630 range Lewis's FAQ gives for its MSN and certificate NP tracks.
Will I have to travel to campus for the PMHNP certificate?
Lewis calls the certificate online only and publishes no required campus residency for it. Some Lewis online courses do call for a campus visit for proctored exams, so check each syllabus in Blackboard early. Your practicum travel is local: to the psychiatric sites where your preceptors work.
Who approves my psychiatric preceptor?
Approval rests with Clinical Coordinators and/or track lead faculty, who judge each preceptor and site against the course, and Lewis's staff directory lists a PMHNP track coordinator as the faculty contact. The Clinical Placement Office runs the contract process. A contract can be denied for IDFPR discipline, so we check a preceptor's license record before the name goes to Lewis.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Lewis's own catalog, program pages and FAQ, its contract portal and Illinois law. Your course, your track coordinator and the Clinical Placement Office have the final word.
Lewis asks you to identify your preceptor. We do the searching.
Tell us your Lewis program, where you live and when your next practicum starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and prepare every detail the contract portal asks for, so your request goes in complete.
- Preceptors matched to the practicum: primary care for
NURS 61100andNURS 61800, acute care forNURS 62500, psychiatric care forNURS 63300 - Preceptor, license and site details ready for your preceptor contract request
- In your own community, anywhere Lewis enrolls you and your RN license is valid
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.