Earning TAMUCC clinical hours at the place you work

TAMUCC's two-part test

The rule appears on page 6 of TAMUCC's January 2026 FNP Student Clinical Guide. Hours at the organization that pays you are permitted "ONLY if" your preceptor has no hand in evaluating you as an employee "AND" your clinical happens on a unit separate from your job. The capital letters are TAMUCC's, and they carry the point: both conditions must be true at the same moment, and satisfying one of them is not enough.

The same page names two people who may never precept a TAMUCC FNP student, wherever the clinical happens: a workplace supervisor and a family member. The FNP Preceptor Guide repeats both exclusions for preceptors reading from their side of the arrangement.

The reasoning is easy to follow. A preceptor signs your Clinical Hours Log and completes the Preceptor Evaluation of Student at the end of each semester. TAMUCC's exclusions keep that sign-off separate from your paycheck and from your family, so the record your clinical faculty member sees is an independent one.

What counts as a different unit

The second condition concerns where you stand during the clinical, not only who precepts you. Suppose you work nights as an RN in a hospital emergency department. A family practice clinic owned by the same health system would usually read as a different unit, while the emergency department on your days off is plainly the same unit, even with a different nurse practitioner beside you. Your clinical faculty member makes the call, so confirm your reading before anyone signs anything.

The unit also has to suit the course. TAMUCC requires a practice setting appropriate for FNP role preparation, and the FNP courses expect a particular mix of patients: a pediatric focus in NURS 5644, a women's health focus in NURS 5645, and across the program 75 hours or 150 logged encounters for pediatrics, the same for women's health and the same again for geriatrics. An adult inpatient unit elsewhere in your hospital may pass the different-unit test and still give you few of those patients; the 630-hour guide sets out the minimums.

On clinical days you are a student, not staff. The FNP guide calls for a school ID badge identifying you "as a Registered Nurse and TAMU-CC CONHS graduate student," which helps coworkers see which role you are in. As a student you are covered by the university's professional liability coverage, bought through fees at registration; the liability coverage guide explains it.

DNP, Nurse Educator and Leadership students

The two-part test comes from the FNP guide. The DNP Student Handbook (July 2026) takes a broader view, accepting workplace practice hours so long as they serve the course objectives and steer clear of any conflict of interest. DNP students also name a community facilitator, someone who helps with access to sites and resources without acting as a supervisor, and each practice experience needs sign-off from the chair of the student's DNP Scholarly Project Committee.

Students on the MSN's educator and leadership paths have no published workplace rule from TAMUCC. Both catalog pages make students responsible for choosing agencies and preceptors, so ask your course faculty whether a practicum at your employer is acceptable before you approach anyone there, and keep the FNP test in mind as a sensible benchmark.