Preceptors for Drexel's Pediatric Acute Care NP

Drexel delivers this MSN online, part-time, with a residency, over an average of three years. The quarter catalog puts it at 57.0 credits and 800 clinical hours; under semesters it becomes 43.0 credits. Starts are Winter 2027 (January 4) and Fall 2027 (August 23). Drexel Online asks for at least a year of nursing in a pediatric acute care setting and lists current PALS among the admission criteria.

Your clinicals begin with one of the longest intensives among Drexel's NP tracks: five days on campus in week one of summer, inside NURS 642. Drexel also urges pediatric applicants to be licensed as RNs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the three states around its Philadelphia base, to open up more preceptors and sites.

Enrollment is closed to residents of eleven states, among them Alabama, Colorado, Kansas and Minnesota, and New York residents must do all rotations in another state. Washington's commission approval lists the PNP Acute MSN. State authorization gives the complete list and the relocation rules.

The catalog gives 800 hours for the track but not for each course, so the 160 shown is the total divided by five. Drexel pediatric NP clinical courses compares all three pediatric tracks course by course, and On-Campus Intensives covers the five-day summer session.

Before NURS 642 you need a B or better in the MSN core, NURS 548, NURS 549, NURS 550, NURS 664 and the pediatric pharmacology course NURS 646.

Drexel accepts NP, CNM and approved-specialty physician preceptors who are licensed and certified in their own state, hold current board certification and have practiced for over a year. For NURS 649 and NURS 650 that points to acute care pediatric NPs, pediatric hospitalists and pediatric subspecialists. For the first two courses it points to pediatric NPs and pediatricians in primary care. Physician assistants are not on Drexel's list.

NURS 651 stands apart. Its title places the medically fragile and technology-dependent child in the community, so its hours may suit a complex-care clinic or a program that follows these children at home. Ask your course faculty which settings they accept before you approach one.

Pediatric NP students must hold PALS. Drexel also names ACLS for acute care NP students, and its compliance page leaves open whether that wording reaches pediatric acute care, so ask your compliance coordinator; BLS, ACLS and PALS covers what Drexel accepts.

Pediatric inpatient teams sit in a small number of children's hospitals, and those hospitals centralize student requests. CHOP will only consider a graduate request sent by the school's clinical site coordinator, needs it by March 1, May 1 or October 1 for summer, fall or spring rotations, and does not let students approach its preceptors themselves. It also asks for a Pennsylvania or New Jersey RN license. Nemours Children's Hospital in Delaware is affiliated with more than 25 nursing schools.

Beyond Philadelphia, the pattern repeats in large systems: Penn State Health and Allegheny Health Network route requests through a central office and forbid private approaches to providers, and UPMC's advanced practice office lists pediatrics among the areas where it gives no placement help. Your own hospital, if you work in pediatric acute care, is the obvious first conversation, though Drexel publishes no rule on training where you work.

Summer carries two of your courses in the quarter sample plan: NURS 642, with its five-day intensive, and NURS 651. That makes the shortened transition summer, seven weeks from June 21 through August 7, 2027, a real planning problem, and Drexel has not published how a clinical course or a five-day intensive fits it. Settle it with your advisor before any preceptor commits.

From Fall 2027 the track has four clinical courses rather than five: NURS 7700, shared with pediatric primary care, then NURS 7710, NURS 7711 and NURS 7712 for the Pediatric Acute Care NP. The catalog prints NURS 7712 with the numeral II, repeating NURS 7711, and it gives no clinical hours for any of them, so the 800-hour total is confirmed only in the quarter catalog.

Semesters open on August 23 and run about 14 weeks in fall and spring. Continuing students get individual transition plans; the full calendar sits on the semester switch.

We plan both halves of this track together. A placement advisor secures a pediatric office preceptor for your first two courses and, in parallel, works the acute and chronic care search that takes longer, looking near you for acute care PNPs, pediatric hospitalists and subspecialty teams that take NP students. Every candidate's license, board certification and experience are confirmed against Drexel's standard before you are introduced.

Acute care sites need the most paperwork, so we collect the preceptor's CV and credential copies, identify who signs Drexel's affiliation agreement, and map the hospital or clinic's onboarding steps. Drexel signs off on each preceptor and site, and our job is a first submission with nothing missing. If a preceptor changes units mid-quarter, a new search begins at once. Request a plan with the form on this page; how it works covers each step.