Finding an NP preceptor in Colorado Springs
Living a short drive from the UCCS campus leaves the search in your hands all the same. UCCS's online NP programs expect you to find primary care or psychiatric hours where you live, here as anywhere. What the city's health systems shape is how a request travels. This guide covers UCHealth Memorial's My Clinical Exchange route, the CommonSpirit hospitals, the outpatient settings that actually count, and how we build a local placement that reaches the college complete.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your UCCS program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your UCCS course.
Home to UCCS, but the search is still yours
A Colorado Springs address can make it feel as if the college keeps a bench of local preceptors for its own students. UCCS's pages say otherwise. Its MSN, RN to MSN and certificate pages all hand the clinical search to the student, in the student's home area, and the newest practicum handbooks rule out giving students the roster of sites UCCS already contracts with. You start from the same blank page as a classmate three states away.
Living here does bring one real convenience. Up to 20 hours of NURS 6980 can come from simulation and skills sessions run on campus for FNP and AGNP students, and a local student reaches them without a trip. Everything else, from the first NURS 6730 assessments to Synthesis, depends on clinicians in town who fit UCCS's rules. The finding your own preceptor page walks through UCCS's exact wording.
UCHealth Memorial: requests go through My Clinical Exchange
UCHealth's southern region centers on Memorial Hospital Central on East Boulder Street and Memorial Hospital North on Briargate Parkway, and a 2023-24 statewide document groups Grandview and Pikes Peak Regional with them. Memorial's student resources page, read in a May 2026 capture, describes one route: every request is processed and approved in My Clinical Exchange (mCE), a coordinator at the student's school has to start it, and it should come in no less than 8 weeks ahead of the planned start, with the page making clear that an early request can still be declined. The page also links a student handbook and a badge request form.
That route lines up with UCCS's own steps. UCCS's Academic Services Professional for Graduate Nursing is the one who, while working through your Clinical Site Sheet, judges whether a site needs mCE and files the rotation request there; you then open and pay for your own mCE account.
Memorial's 8 weeks also overlap with UCCS's legal review of any brand-new Affiliation Agreement, which may run 6 to 8 weeks and sometimes more, so the lead time guide is worth reading before you ask. Memorial's page never mentions UCCS, so treat each Memorial clinic as a request still to be made. More on the platform: myClinicalExchange at UCCS.
FNP and AGNP hours cannot be done on Memorial's hospital floors. The outpatient side is where they fit, and urgent care, such as the Circle Square location Memorial lists, counts only from your second rotation on.
Penrose, St. Francis and the CommonSpirit side
Penrose Hospital and St. Francis Hospital, including the Interquest campus, appear on CommonSpirit Health's own site as Mountain region hospitals. CommonSpirit's Student Placement and Shadowing page, however, spells out a process only for St. Mary-Corwin in Pueblo and St. Thomas More in Cañon City. For NP students at Penrose or St. Francis it publishes nothing. The 2023-24 statewide flu document shows CommonSpirit students entering compliance items in mCE, which is worth confirming for any current request.
In practice, a CommonSpirit-affiliated clinic in Colorado Springs is approached as its own site. We ask the practice who holds authority to sign a clinical education agreement, what it requires of students beyond UCCS's list, and whether mCE is involved, so the college gets an accurate site sheet. Pueblo and Cañon City are covered on the statewide page.
Where FNP, AGNP and PMHNP hours happen locally
Most usable hours in the Pikes Peak region come from outpatient practices, not hospitals. Match each lead to the rotation it can serve:
- Family and internal medicine practices, independent or system-owned, for
NURS 6730,NURS 6915andNURS 6925. - Pediatric offices, or family practices with a large pediatric panel, for the FNP-only
NURS 6900. - Urgent care: up to 110 hours from the second rotation, plus another 110 in Synthesis.
- Community health clinics and faith-based clinics, both of which UCCS's handbooks name as places to look.
- For AGNP students, assisted living or skilled nursing (up to 110 hours) and outpatient hospice.
- For PMHNP students, outpatient psychiatric practices, community mental health programs and inpatient psychiatric units, since UCCS encourages both inpatient and outpatient time.
Towns on the region's edges, such as Monument, Fountain and Woodland Park, widen the pool if you can reach them on clinic days. Check each setting against what counts for FNP and AGNP before you ask anyone to precept.
Military, federal and employer sites
Colorado Springs sits beside Fort Carson, home to Evans Army Community Hospital, and veterans' clinics serve the area too. UCCS's current handbook sets one firm rule for these clinicians: military providers must hold a license in a state, whatever their assignment. The 2024 handbook said military sites were approved case by case. How these federal facilities take outside NP students is not covered in the sources behind this guide, so raise any such lead with the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator early.
If you already work for Memorial, Penrose-St. Francis or a military clinic, plan around UCCS's employer rule. The college rules out any site that employs you or a relative; an employer site is possible only at another location or on another unit, and only once the coordinator signs off. The workplace and family rules page sets out the full text.
Why Colorado Springs students choose us
We run the local search for you: calls to practices across Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region, each clinician screened against UCCS's preceptor rules before anyone is asked, and every setting matched to your course and cohort hours. When a clinic says yes, we gather what the Clinical Site Sheet needs, from the clinician's license, board certification and credentials to the practice's address, the name of whoever can sign for the site and an exact hour count, and we flag whether the site uses mCE.
Approval stays with UCCS, and our job is a file so complete that the college can act on it without a round of corrections. If a preceptor drops mid-semester, we find a replacement and prepare the new site sheet details. The form below starts your search, and how it works shows each step.
Questions UCCS students ask
Does UCCS place its Colorado Springs students with local preceptors?
No UCCS source promises that. The program pages leave the search for NP hours to each student in their home area, and Colorado Springs residents are treated the same as students anywhere in the 14 approved states. You can ask the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator for guidance, yet the college keeps its roster of contracted sites private.
Can I do FNP clinical hours at UCHealth Memorial Hospital?
Not inside the hospital. UCCS limits FNP and AGNP clinical time to primary care settings, with hospital, inpatient and emergency department hours ruled out. Outpatient clinics and urgent care are different. Memorial's student page routes requests through My Clinical Exchange, started by the school at least 8 weeks ahead, and lists a separate contact for other locations and providers.
Is Penrose-St. Francis part of CommonSpirit or Intermountain?
CommonSpirit Health lists Penrose Hospital and St. Francis Hospital among its Mountain region hospitals. Its student placement page publishes no NP process for either, and a 2023-24 statewide document shows CommonSpirit students completing compliance items in My Clinical Exchange. Confirm a clinic's current requirements before the site sheet goes to UCCS.
Can a military provider at Fort Carson precept a UCCS NP student?
Possibly. In UCCS's handbook, a military clinician needs a license from some state no matter where they are stationed, plus the experience and certification every preceptor needs. The 2024 handbook described military sites as approved case by case, so raise the lead with the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator early rather than counting on it.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against UCCS's catalog, practicum handbooks and college pages. Your degree plan, the handbook for your cohort and the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
UCCS asks you to find your clinical hours where you live. Let us run that search.
Tell us your UCCS track, your next clinical course and where you live. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the details your Clinical Site Sheet needs, early enough for the agreement to be signed before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NURS 6900, acute and chronic care forNURS 6915andNURS 6925, psychiatric prescribers forNURS 6801toNURS 6803 - Credentials, license, certification and the site's signer ready for the Clinical Site Sheet
- In Colorado Springs, along the Front Range, or in any of UCCS's approved states
Start your placement plan
Your program, city and next clinical semester is all we need to begin.