Start practicum planning at acceptance: a Lewis timeline

Why the clock starts at acceptance

Lewis's graduate nursing FAQ says students are encouraged to plan "upon acceptance to the program." Lewis publishes no filing deadline, so that phrase is the only timing advice it gives. The rest of its rules explain why the advice matters.

• Practicums are fixed to semesters. Each NP practicum is one of Lewis's 16-week NP courses, taken beside its management course, and a contract is approved for the semester named in the request.
• Review has a floor. Lewis's status legend asks for a minimum of two weeks once a request is in review.
• New sites take longer. Where Lewis has no agreement with the agency, the request waits for the agency's signature, with no published limit.
• Health systems run their own calendars, and some set request deadlines months before a semester opens.

Working backward from a practicum's first day

These are our planning targets, built from Lewis's own steps. They are not Lewis deadlines, and your course or the Clinical Placement Office may set earlier ones.

1. Six months or more aheadKnow which course the semester holds and the setting its title calls for. Start the search, or hand it to us, and look up any hospital's student request route and deadline.
2. Four to five months aheadHave the preceptor confirmed for all 16 weeks, with credentials, license and agency details in hand.
3. Three to four months aheadFile a complete contract request, so the review and any new affiliation agreement run with time to spare.
4. Six to eight weeks aheadFinish the agency's onboarding, and check that every CastleBranch item stays valid to the end of the semester, not just the start.
5. The first weekConfirm your approved status and schedule, and walk your preceptor through the objectives in your syllabus.

Health systems keep their own clocks

Lewis's two-week review is only one of the clocks running. The larger systems around Chicago publish their own, and they often run longer. According to each system's own student page:

• Endeavor Health takes requests through My Clinical Exchange. Its deadlines are March 1 for fall and winter and August 1 for spring and summer, so a January practicum there needs its request in more than five months ahead (our arithmetic).
• Northwestern Medicine's page for APRN students in its north and northwest suburbs requests at least four to eight weeks of lead time, and only schools with a current agreement qualify.
• Morris Hospital, in Grundy County, warns that its agreement can take several weeks, and it clears students only after a background check and drug screening.
• Riverside Healthcare, in Kankakee, requires an affiliation agreement with Riverside before an NP student can rotate there.

Stack Lewis's review and a possible new agreement on top of any of these, and a request made a few weeks before the semester rarely clears in time. The placement process page sets out every step in order.

Planning four practicums, not one

An FNP student needs approved preceptors for NURS 61100, NURS 61800, NURS 64100 and NURS 64300, and AGACNP, AGPCNP and PMHNP students need three. The planning repeats every time, and each round overlaps with coursework and work shifts. Some rounds need a longer lead than others: the AGACNP's acute care practicums, NURS 62500 and NURS 62700, point toward hospital services, where a system's student office and agreement rules add their own weeks, so we start those searches first.

We keep a running plan for each Lewis student we work with. The search for your next practicum starts while the current one is still under way, so the next preceptor is confirmed well before that semester arrives. Tell us your acceptance term and track and we will map every practicum semester with you.