Lewis practicums in the north and northwest Cook suburbs

Where the north and northwest suburbs begin and end

The boundary used here is the North District of the Cook County Department of Public Health. It starts at the lakefront in Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka and Glencoe, runs inland through Glenview, Northbrook, Skokie, Niles, Morton Grove, Lincolnwood, Park Ridge and Des Plaines, and stretches west through Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Palatine, Wheeling, Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Streamwood, Hanover Park and Barrington. Evanston sits inside the area but runs its own health department.

The 11 townships held 1,072,837 people in the Census Bureau's July 2025 estimates. They lie on the far side of the metro from Romeoville: Schaumburg is about 35 miles away, roughly 55 minutes without traffic, Arlington Heights about 41 miles and roughly 58 minutes, and Evanston about 45 miles and roughly 73 minutes. Schaumburg was once a Lewis location; today its graduate nursing labs are at Lewis University at Oak Brook.

Advocate, Ascension, Prime and Northwestern

• Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Children's Hospital - Park Ridge. According to Advocate's placement page, it places Illinois inpatient NP students but leaves finding the preceptor to the student and school, and requests run through myClinicalExchange. In May 2026 the Illinois Board of Nursing approved an out-of-state college's nursing placements at Lutheran General, so outside programs compete for the same units.
• Ascension Illinois kept four hospitals here after its 2025 sale to Prime: Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village, Saint Alexius in Hoffman Estates, Alexian Brothers Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates. No public NP student page was found for them.
• Prime Healthcare has owned Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston and Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines since March 1, 2025, and Prime publishes nothing on NP students at its Illinois hospitals.
• Northwestern Medicine has no hospital in north or northwest Cook. Its APRN application for the north and northwest suburbs covers its Huntley, Lake Forest/Grayslake, McHenry and Woodstock hospitals plus ambulatory settings in that region, and the Lake and McHenry guide walks through it.

North Cook settings for each Lewis practicum

• NURS 61100 and NURS 61800 fit the health centers above or internal medicine and family practices from Evanston to Palatine, as long as adolescents appear on the NURS 61800 schedule.
• For NURS 64100 and NURS 64300, the FNP's women's and children's courses, note that Northwestern's own application warns that women's health, pediatric and other specialty slots are not always available, so plan on community offices as well; Advocate Children's Hospital in Park Ridge is a pediatric hospital in the area.
• NURS 62500 and NURS 62700: acute care at Lutheran General, the four Endeavor hospitals, Alexian Brothers, Saint Alexius, Saint Francis or Holy Family. Our AGACNP practicum page explains what each course expects.
• Psychiatric rotations (NURS 63300 to NURS 63700) can draw on the Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates, while the health centers' mental health designations mark outpatient need.