Drexel's Emergency/Trauma NP certificate: preceptors for 500 emergency hours

The Emergency/Trauma Nurse Practitioner certificate is one of Drexel's online post-master's certificates, taken part-time with an on-campus component. Drexel Online's entry bar is an FNP credential, meaning national board certification plus FNP licensure, and two years in an emergency department, critical care, urgent care or trauma. The catalog expects about nine months to finish; Drexel Online says 9 to 15 months.

The 2026–27 quarter catalog sets the certificate at 25.0 quarter credits, with 500 clinical hours under faculty supervision spread over three courses: NURS 673 and NURS 674, Emergency/Trauma Care Across the Lifespan I and II, and NURS 675, which turns to trauma and critically ill patients. How the 500 divide among the three isn't stated.

Drexel Online lists a single intake for its NP certificates, Fall 2027, with applications due July 1, 2027. Everyone admitted will therefore take the semester courses NURS 7610 to NURS 7612, which the 2027–28 catalog frames around evidence-based diagnosis and management in emergency care, inside a 29.0-credit certificate.

Drexel says students work alongside licensed physicians and APNs in accredited institutions during these hours. Its setting list is broad: urgent care, EDs, correctional health, trauma and critical care units, and air or ground transport teams. That range helps: a student who can't get into a busy ED can still build hours in urgent care or a correctional health service, once course faculty agree the setting fits the course.

Drexel's standard preceptor rules sit on top of that: an NP, CNM or physician from an approved specialty, holding their own state's license and certification, with a year or more of practice and current board certification. In emergency settings that usually means an emergency medicine physician or an experienced NP working in emergency or urgent care. Details, including what each preceptor sends Drexel, are on the preceptor requirements page.

Life support cards need checking too. Drexel requires American Heart Association BLS of everyone, and its FNP with Emergency Specialization pages add ACLS and PALS before rotations. Ask Clinical Compliance whether the certificate needs the same three; the BLS, ACLS and PALS page covers Drexel's card rules.

Drexel's pages don't agree on four points about this certificate. None is a reason to wait, but each can change your eligibility or your calendar.

• Who may enroll. Admissions ask for FNP certification, but the catalog's course descriptions present the emergency courses as designed for the post-graduate FNP or AGPCNP.
• Credits. The quarter catalog text puts the requirement at 15.0 credits, varying with credit for prior NP coursework, yet the courses it lists add to 25.0. The semester certificate is 29.0 credits.
• Intensive days. Drexel Online lists a 2-day intensive in NURS 673 in week one of winter. The drexel.edu certificate page describes a three-day simulation block inside every emergency course instead, run fall, winter and spring, while the catalog's sample plan puts the three courses in winter, spring and summer.
• A semester prerequisite. NURS 7610 lists NURS 7604, an FNP course that certificate-only students don't take.

Get the answers in writing from admissions or the Emergency NP track director. The On-Campus Intensives page tracks what each track's intensives look like as Drexel updates them.

Emergency departments are among the hardest places for an NP student to land. Hospitals run them, so a rotation usually depends on a system-level student process and a clinical affiliation agreement with Drexel, on top of a willing clinician. Shift-based schedules also make steady weekly hours harder to plan than in a clinic with fixed days.

Some hospital systems limit NP students outright. Near Philadelphia, Tower Health's rotation form says it won't accept NP requests, and other systems take requests only through their own student offices. The Philadelphia clinical sites page sets out how the region's systems handle NP students.

Location rules narrow things further. New York is off the table for rotations. Washington's commission lists Drexel's MSN tracks, not this certificate, among its approved practice experiences, so check with Drexel before booking hours there. On licensure, Drexel's NP program pages call for Pennsylvania RN licensure ahead of clinicals, yet its compliance certifications page treats a compact license from your home state as enough. The Pennsylvania RN license page weighs the two.

Drexel also runs the same emergency courses inside two longer programs. The MSN FNP with Emergency Specialization (63.0 quarter credits) and its post-master's version (48.0) both total 1,140 hours: four 160-hour FNP courses plus NURS 673 to NURS 675. If you are not yet a family NP, that route is the one to look at, and the FNP with Emergency Specialization page covers its preceptor search.

Both of those programs also start in Fall 2027 only, so all three emergency pathways begin on semesters. No hours appear for NURS 7610 to NURS 7612 in the semester catalog; the 500-hour figure comes from the quarter catalog. Ask your advisor what hour target each semester course carries and which term each runs before any preceptor pencils you in. The semester conversion page explains the wider change.

Emergency placements reward a search that starts from the full list of settings rather than a single hospital, and that is how we work. We map the emergency, urgent care, correctional and transport services within reach of you, then approach clinicians whose credentials meet Drexel's rules: board-certified NPs and emergency physicians with at least a year in practice. Where a hospital runs its own student intake, we learn its steps and timing early so they line up with your semester.

From there we build the file Drexel's contracting and compliance staff need: the clinician's CV with license and board certification, the name of whoever signs the site's affiliation agreement, and the site's onboarding checklist. Drexel signs off on every preceptor, site and agreement, and we see to it that your emergency file lands complete and in line with those rules at the first pass. If a preceptor bows out partway through a course, we are on call to search again in a comparable setting. Tell us about your plans through the form here, or see what shapes the cost.