Preceptors for Drexel's Pediatric Primary and Acute Care Dual NP

The dual MSN is online with residency and part-time, and Drexel gives an average length of four years, a year longer than the single pediatric tracks. The 2026–27 catalog lists 62.0 quarter credits and 1,000 clinical hours. Drexel Online offers Winter 2027, starting January 4, as the only start term, and the program does not appear in the 2027–28 semester catalog.

Admission asks for at least a year in pediatric acute care. Like the other pediatric tracks, the dual option comes with Drexel's strong suggestion to hold Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware RN licenses, which widens the set of preceptors and sites you can use. The first clinical course, NURS 642, opens with a five-day On-Campus Intensive in week one of summer.

Drexel cannot enroll residents of Wyoming, Oregon, Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska or either Dakota, and no rotation may take place in New York State. Washington's commission approval names the PNP Primary and Acute MSN. State authorization explains the relocation rules.

The dual track takes the five pediatric acute care courses and adds NURS 647, the adolescent primary care course, at the end. The catalog gives a 1,000-hour total and no per-course split. Six courses at the 160 hours used elsewhere would make 960, so the extra 40 hours are unexplained; confirm the split with your track director. Drexel pediatric NP clinical courses compares the three pediatric sequences.

Hours per course are not published for this track. Treat the setting column as a planning guide drawn from the course titles, and check each course's syllabus.

The dual track uses Drexel's usual preceptor standard, with no pediatric-specific additions: the clinician is an NP, a CNM or a physician in an approved specialty, licensed and certified where they work, board certified at present, and past their first year of practice. Physician assistants are not on the list. Each preceptor sends Drexel a CV, license and board certification, and later evaluates you in E*Value.

In a dual plan the preceptor mix changes three times. Pediatric NPs and pediatricians in primary care carry NURS 642 and NURS 643; acute care PNPs, pediatric hospitalists or subspecialty teams carry NURS 649 and NURS 650; a complex-care program fits NURS 651; and then you return to a pediatric office for NURS 647, a year after your last primary care rotation.

PALS is required for pediatric NP students. ACLS is listed for acute care NP students, and Drexel does not say whether that includes pediatric acute care, so check with your compliance coordinator; BLS, ACLS and PALS has the rules.

You build two networks, not one, and you keep both alive for about two years. Children's hospitals centralize their student requests: CHOP takes graduate requests only from the school's clinical site coordinator, sets May 1, October 1 and March 1 deadlines for fall, spring and summer, and bars students from contacting its preceptors. Nemours Children's Hospital in Delaware works with more than 25 nursing schools.

The final course is its own challenge. NURS 647 needs a pediatric office with plenty of teenagers in fall of year four, a full year after your last office rotation, so the preceptor from NURS 643 may have committed to other students by then. Two neighboring systems already know Drexel: Virtua in New Jersey lists it as an affiliate school, and Delaware's ChristianaCare names it as a graduate clinical partner, though neither publishes pediatric NP details. New Jersey and Delaware clinical sites covers how each takes requests.

Drexel switches to semesters on August 23, 2027, and the 2027–28 catalog lists no dual pediatric program. The single tracks have semester numbers, NURS 7700 to NURS 7703 for primary care and NURS 7700 with NURS 7710 to NURS 7712 for acute care, but nothing published says how dual students map onto them. Drexel says its advisors will work out a personal plan for every continuing student, and some health programs will keep their own calendars or course sequences.

The calendar matters before then too. The 2027 summer term, June 21 to August 7, lasts seven weeks rather than ten, and your sample plan places NURS 642 and NURS 651 in summers. Ask your advisor for your written transition plan before any preceptor commits to a summer or fall 2027 block. The semester switch has the calendar.

We plan the dual track as one long arc, all six courses mapped before the first call. A placement advisor lines up the pediatric office preceptors for the opening courses, runs the longer acute and specialty search alongside, and keeps a lead ready for the NURS 647 adolescent course that comes a year later. Every candidate is checked against Drexel's rule first: licensed, board certified, at least a year in practice.

Across all six courses we keep each site's paperwork current: the preceptor's CV and credential copies, the person who signs Drexel's affiliation agreement, and the site's onboarding steps. Drexel approves each one, and each file reaches it complete and in line with its rules. If a preceptor drops out in any of the six quarters, we resume the search right away and keep the rest of your plan intact. Your six-course plan starts with the form on this page, and how it works explains our process.