NURS 5645 Acute and Chronic Illness II: a women's health preceptor for your third clinical
NURS 5645, Management of Acute and Chronic Illness II (Women's Health), is TAMUCC's third FNP clinical course, with 135 precepted hours after the pediatric course. It is the course built around the women's health minimum, so look for an NP, MD or DO who meets TAMUCC's list and practices in Texas with women from adolescence through the later decades of life on the schedule.
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NURS 5645
What NURS 5645 covers, and a syllabus worth reading closely
NURS 5645 is a six-credit, mid-clinical course that requires NURS 5644 first and opens the way to NURS 5746. TAMUCC's January 2026 FNP guides give it a women's health focus, and the catalog title carries on the management of acute and chronic illness begun in the pediatric course.
There is a wrinkle. A Fall 2023 syllabus for this course listed a broader set of focus areas, among them mental health, geriatrics, pediatrics and pregnancy, while the current guides center women's health. Read the syllabus for your own semester and ask your clinical faculty member how much of the 135 hours must be with women before you commit to a single-specialty site.
That 2023 syllabus also stated that the clinical faculty member approves both the clinical site and the preceptor, which is how TAMUCC's clearance still works today.
Women's health settings and qualifying preceptors
Good fits include outpatient OB/GYN practices, women's health clinics and family practices where women make up a large share of visits. Prenatal visits, gynecologic care, contraception counseling, and menopause and chronic disease follow-ups supply the acute and chronic mix the catalog title points to.
Your women's health preceptor still has to clear the same four bars as in earlier courses. The license must be an active, unencumbered NP, MD or DO license. The clinician holds national board certification, whether in family practice or a related specialty, and has two-plus years of practicing independently. And the workplace has to suit FNP training. A family NP or family physician with a strong women's health panel fits the wording plainly. For an OB/GYN physician or a women's health nurse practitioner, the related-specialty question goes to your clinical faculty member first.
Clinicians holding other license types fall outside TAMUCC's three named licenses, so confirm with clinical faculty before you build a plan around one. Your work supervisor and your relatives are excluded in every course; the details are on preceptor requirements.
How to find a women's health preceptor in Texas
Start with your own network, which TAMUCC notes is how most FNP students secure a preceptor. If you have worked in labor and delivery, postpartum care or a clinic that refers to OB/GYN, the physicians and NPs you already know are the warmest asks. Your NURS 5644 preceptor may also know colleagues who focus on women's health.
Next, search Typhon for women's health practices where earlier TAMUCC students trained, then read the contract dates in the Clinical Site Directory. A practice with a current agreement skips the longest wait. If it is missing from Typhon or its contract has lapsed, the site needs an "Initiate Affiliation Agreement" request, which TAMUCC warns can take up to three months to be signed, with large health systems slower still. Affiliation agreements has the full process.
When you approach a clinician you have not worked with, do it in person with your CV and the NURS 5645 objectives in hand. If the practice employs you, the preceptor can play no part in your job evaluation and the clinical must be on another unit; workplace clinical rules explains the conditions.
The women's health minimum and your running count
Across the FNP program, TAMUCC requires 75 clinical hours in women's health, or 150 documented women's health encounters in Typhon. Because TAMUCC plans on roughly two patients seen per hour, a busy women's health clinic moves both numbers along quickly. Women's health encounters you logged in NURS 5624 and NURS 5644 still count toward this rotation.
Before the term begins, pull your Typhon totals so you know how many women's health hours or encounters remain. By the midpoint of the course you should be able to tell whether the site will close the gap. If it will not, raise it with your clinical faculty member while a second preceptor can still be added in time.
Geriatrics, the third minimum, has no course label in the guides, so keep an eye on that total here too. The complete picture is on the 630-hour breakdown.
Scheduling 135 hours, site visits and what counts
Plan on close to seventeen eight-hour days of hands-on care spread through the semester. Clinical time generally runs on weekdays from 8 am to 5 pm, must suit your clinical faculty member's schedule, and has to wrap up before classes end, since unfinished hours cannot move forward a term. Public syllabi place NURS 5645 in fall terms from 2023 through 2025, but your Degree Planner decides your own term.
Your clinical faculty member makes at least one evaluative site visit under the current guide; the 2023 syllabus said one to two. Missing clinic without notice on the day faculty arrive brings formal discipline and risks dismissal from the program. Site visits and evaluations covers what to expect.
Only active patient care counts toward the 135: time with the patient, discussing care with your preceptor and documenting in the EHR. Lunch and time out of the clinic are left off.
Nothing you log counts until the site's agreement is active and your preceptor's packet is fully signed, however ready your preceptor is to begin.
Why TAMUCC students choose us for NURS 5645
We are built for exactly this search. We look for a Texas practice near your home where women's health visits fill the day, run by a clinician who fits TAMUCC's preceptor rules, and we raise any related-specialty question with you early so your clinical faculty member can weigh in before any packet is sent.
The placement desk pulls together everything TAMUCC's process calls for. For the Preceptor Agreement Packet, that is the preceptor's CV, certification details and a license copy dated inside the last 30 days. For the agreement, it is the site's contract dates as Typhon shows them and, when a new agreement is required, the person at the practice who signs. Approval stays with your clinical faculty member, and the file they review is whole on arrival.
Should a preceptor leave partway through, we remain on call and look for a replacement site, from Houston to the Coastal Bend. Send your location and course term through the contact form.
Questions TAMUCC students ask
Is NURS 5645 only women's health?
TAMUCC's January 2026 FNP guides give NURS 5645 a women's health focus. A Fall 2023 syllabus described a broader list of focus areas, including mental health, geriatrics, pediatrics and pregnancy. Your semester's syllabus and your clinical faculty member set the patient mix, so confirm it before choosing between a women's health clinic and a broad family practice.
Can an OB/GYN physician precept NURS 5645?
An MD or DO license qualifies. The physician also needs the national board certification TAMUCC asks for, two or more years of independent practice and a setting suited to FNP preparation. Whether obstetrics and gynecology counts as a related specialty is for your clinical faculty member to decide, so ask them before you ask the physician.
Can I finish my women's health hours in NURS 5746 instead?
The women's health minimum applies across the program's 630 hours, and encounters logged in any course count toward it. Leaving most of it for the capstone crowds a course that already needs 270 hours, though. If NURS 5645 will end short, settle a plan with clinical faculty or the FNP Clinical Coordinator before the term closes.
Does my NURS 5644 preceptor need new paperwork to precept NURS 5645?
Yes. Even a returning preceptor signs a new Preceptor Agreement Packet each semester, attaching a current CV and a license copy dated within the past 30 days. The site's affiliation agreement also has to be active for the new term, so check its dates in Typhon.
When is NURS 5645 offered?
Public syllabi show NURS 5645 in the fall of 2023, 2024 and 2025, and the MSN handbook's rule is one offering per calendar year. Treat that as a pattern, not a schedule promise. Your graduate advisor and Degree Planner confirm your term, and the academic calendar page lists current term dates.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against TAMUCC's catalog, FNP clinical guides, MSN and DNP handbooks and college pages. Your course, your clinical faculty member and the handbook for your cohort have the final word.
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