Preceptors for Drexel's Pediatric Primary Care NP

Pediatric primary care is a part-time online MSN with residency, and Drexel expects about three years from start to finish. Its quarter version runs 52.0 credits with 640 clinical hours, and the semester version runs 43.0 credits. Starts are Winter 2027, from January 4, and Fall 2027, from August 23. Pediatric experience is not needed for admission, but Drexel requires one year of experience before you can begin the clinical portion.

The first clinical course, NURS 642, brings you to campus for four days at the start of the summer quarter. The acute care and dual pediatric tracks spend five days there, since the same course starts their sequence too.

Drexel cannot presently enroll pediatric NP students who live in KS, MO, NE, CO, WY, ND, SD, MN, OR, LA or AL, and New York residents who enroll must complete every rotation outside New York State. Washington's nursing commission approval names the PNP Primary MSN. State authorization covers relocation and the license rules.

Drexel states 640 hours for the track and no per-course figure, so 160 each is the total divided by four. Full titles and prerequisites, including the pediatric pharmacology course NURS 646, are on Drexel pediatric NP clinical courses.

Two courses shape the search. NURS 647 needs a practice with plenty of teenagers, and NURS 648 calls for a preceptor who follows children with chronic or complex conditions, the kind of patients a specialty clinic or a large pediatric group sees every day.

Drexel defines eligible preceptors by credential rather than by specialty: NPs, CNMs and physicians in specialties it approves. For pediatric primary care that means pediatric NPs and pediatricians, and possibly family NPs with a heavy pediatric panel; ask your track director whether a family NP works for a given course.

Each needs a license and certification valid in their state, a current board certificate and twelve or more months of practice, and sends Drexel a CV with copies of the license and board certificate. Physician assistants are not on the list. Preceptors complete a midterm and final evaluation of you in E*Value and validate your hours there.

On certifications, Drexel lists PALS as required for pediatric NP students but never says whether the primary care track counts alongside acute care. Put the question to your compliance coordinator, and keep your AHA BLS current regardless; BLS, ACLS and PALS has the details.

Children's hospitals run tight gates. At the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, graduate placement requests must come from the school, sent by its clinical site coordinator. CHOP's cutoffs are March 1 for summer, May 1 for fall and October 1 for spring, and it prohibits students from contacting its sites or preceptors directly. Graduate students there also need a valid Pennsylvania or New Jersey RN license.

Elsewhere, Nemours Children's Hospital, Delaware counts more than 25 schools of nursing among its affiliates, and UPMC's advanced practice office gives no help with pediatric placements. A March 2026 Drexel partnership with Cooper University Health Care promises expanded placements in pediatrics, but it is aimed at Drexel's accelerated BSN students and does not name NP students.

That makes independent pediatric practices, community health centers and school-based programs the natural core of a search. Drexel's license advice makes sense here: licenses in all three states open the Philadelphia region's practices on both sides of the river. New Jersey and Delaware clinical sites covers the systems across the border.

The sample plan starts NURS 642 and its intensive in summer, and Drexel is running a single seven-week transition term in summer 2027, with classes from June 21 until August 7. Drexel has not published how a pediatric course and an OCI fit that shorter term, so confirm the arrangement with your advisor before a preceptor holds dates.

The semester catalog renumbers the track as NURS 7700, then NURS 7701, NURS 7702 and NURS 7703, all 5.0 semester credits. NURS 7700, the first primary care course in diagnostic reasoning and clinical decision making, also opens the pediatric acute care track. The catalog prints NURS 7702 and NURS 7703 without a numeral in their titles and gives no hours for any of the four.

The first semester opens August 23, 2027, and fall and spring terms run about 14 weeks. Advisors are preparing a transition plan for each continuing student; the semester switch has the rest.

We specialize in the pediatric search that CHOP-style gates make hard. A placement advisor looks near you for pediatric NPs and pediatricians in independent practices, community health centers and pediatric groups, with an eye on the teen-heavy practice NURS 647 needs and the complex-care patients of NURS 648. Each clinician's credential, board status and practice history is screened against Drexel's standard before any introduction.

Pediatric practices get a clean packet from us: the preceptor's CV and board certificate, the practice's affiliation signer, and its onboarding rules for students. Final approval rests with Drexel, and the packet is designed to meet its rules without back-and-forth. A pediatric preceptor who withdraws mid-quarter sends us straight back to searching. Start with your county and next course in the form on this page, or read the stages on how it works first.