Drexel FNP clinical courses, NURS 534 to NURS 538

Each FNP clinical course pairs online didactic work with a practicum that runs at the same time. Because the course descriptions give the hours for all five, none of the figures below is an estimate. The sample plan runs the courses in back-to-back quarters from Summer of year two to Summer of year three.

Those five add up to 720, the figure in the catalog header for both the 56.0-credit MSN and the 38.0-credit post-master's FNP certificate. The clinical hours overview compares that total with every other Drexel track.

The course titles tell you which patients each quarter centers on. NURS 534 opens with the emerging family, NURS 535 turns to infants, children and adolescents, and NURS 536 and NURS 537 cover adults and older adults across the adult age range. NURS 538 closes the sequence with a shorter practicum that pulls the whole lifespan together.

Drexel's list of FNP settings is broad, running from primary care clinics and physician offices to schools, emergency departments, long-term care, correctional facilities, home health, public health and HMOs. Whoever precepts you must meet Drexel's rules, summarized on the preceptor requirements page. Drexel publishes no per-course setting rule, so your syllabus and track director settle whether a given site fits a given quarter.

NURS 534 opens only to students holding at least a B in the MSN core, advanced pathophysiology, advanced pharmacology, advanced health assessment and NURS 664, plus NURS 556, which is FNP pharmacology. NUPR 520, the zero-credit clinical orientation seminar, sits in Fall of year two, three quarters before NURS 534; the NUPR 520 guide explains what it covers.

NURS 534 also carries the FNP On-Campus Intensive: four in-person days at the start of the summer quarter, including work in CNHP's multidisciplinary patient simulation lab. That puts the OCI inside the same ten weeks as your first 160 hours, so leave those days clear when you and your preceptor sketch the schedule. Drexel warns that OCI dates can move, and the intensives page keeps track of them.

Under the 2027–28 catalog the FNP MSN becomes 43.0 semester credits with four 5.0-credit clinical courses. The integrative practicum disappears, and Drexel has not said whether the 720-hour total carries into the new structure.

NURS 7600 folds in gender-related care for primary care patients, and the first three courses are shared with the AGPCNP track, covered on the AGPCNP course page. The semester gate is a B or better in NURS 5000–NURS 5002, NURS 6000, NURS 6001 and NURS 6003. Winter 2027 admits start on the quarter courses; Fall 2027 admits and new FNP certificate students start here.

In the quarter sample plan, NURS 534 and NURS 538 both land in a summer quarter, and Summer 2027 is different: a single transition term lasting seven weeks instead of ten, from June 21 to August 7, 2027. How a 160-hour course and a week-one OCI squeeze into that window is not yet published.

If one of your FNP courses lands in that term, raise it with your advisor and track director before the spring quarter ends. At an even pace, the full 160 hours of NURS 534 in seven weeks would mean roughly 23 hours a week rather than 16, which changes the kind of preceptor schedule you need. Continuing students each get a transition plan drawn up by Drexel's advisors, and the semester conversion guide covers the wider switch.

The MSN in FNP with Emergency Specialization borrows four of these courses, NURS 534 through NURS 537, and skips NURS 538. Its sample plan also reorders them, starting with NURS 536 in Winter of year two, then NURS 537, NURS 534 and NURS 535, before the emergency courses NURS 673, NURS 674 and NURS 675 bring the total to 1,140 hours.

That track holds its intensives in winter, one day in NURS 536 and two in NURS 673, and admission reopens for Fall 2027 only, so new students take the semester version. Applicants also need one to two years of trauma, urgent care, critical care or emergency department experience, plus BLS, ACLS and PALS. The emergency course page covers the emergency half in full.

We plan the FNP sequence as a whole. That means a family preceptor with a genuine pediatric panel ready for NURS 535, adult and older-adult volume lined up for NURS 536 and NURS 537, and an 80-hour placement for NURS 538 that fits the final summer. Each preceptor we bring you qualifies under Drexel's rules as an NP, CNM or physician, with a calendar that can carry the course's hours.

We also assemble what Drexel's clinical contracting and compliance teams need: CV, license and board certification from the preceptor, and the site's contact for the clinical affiliation agreement. Approval of every preceptor and site stays with Drexel, and our job is to hand its team a complete file that matches its rules on the first pass. If a preceptor steps away mid-quarter, we move on a replacement at once. See how we work for Drexel FNP students.