The UCCS MSN Family Nurse Practitioner track, rotation by rotation

What the FNP option looks like at UCCS

The Family NP option is one of three nurse practitioner tracks inside the Nursing MSN at the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Coursework is online, and the MSN page states "No Campus Visits Required." The catalog lists 47-48 credits for the degree: a 22-23 credit core that every track shares and a 25-26 credit NP track.

Plan on roughly three years of full-time study or four part time, by the catalog's estimate, with six years as the hard ceiling; spring, summer and fall are all start options. The track trains you for primary care of patients at every age. UCCS says plainly that it is not preparation for emergency room or inpatient work, which it describes as better suited to an acute care NP program.

UCCS admits only residents of 14 states, since both the classes and every practicum hour must take place in one of them. The college treats the state you lived in when you applied as your residence, so the preceptors you need are the ones near home. The approved states guide lists all 14.

The order you take them in

UCCS publishes no semester-by-semester FNP map. Each admitted student gets an individual degree plan, and the catalog prerequisites pin down only a few fixed points. It helps to read the sequence as a chain of preceptor searches, since every clinical course needs its own approved site and paperwork.

1. Advanced Health Assessment comes firstYour opening clinical course is NURS 6730: 45 hours in a primary care setting, where emergency departments, urgent care, skilled nursing and specialty clinics are excluded. The NURS 6730 guide walks through that first search.
2. The core has to be finishedThe catalog makes the whole MSN core, along with the advanced practice trio of NURS 6280, NURS 6730 and NURS 6740, a prerequisite for each primary care course. Population rotations wait until the core is behind you.
3. Pediatric, acute and chronic rotationsNURS 6900, NURS 6915 and NURS 6925 follow in whatever order your degree plan sets; the catalog does not lock one in. See the pediatric course guide and the acute and chronic guide.
4. Pre-Synthesis, if your plan lists itNURS 6982 needs one primary care course behind you and is not required of every student.
5. Synthesis closes the trackTo register for NURS 6980 you need pediatrics, both the acute and the chronic course, gender health and, if your plan includes it, Pre-Synthesis. It is the largest block of hours in the program, covered in the Synthesis guide.

Who can precept a UCCS FNP student

Your FNP preceptors can be nurse practitioners, physicians (MD or DO) or physician assistants, each holding a license in the state of the rotation and at least two years in practice. NP preceptors need national certification and full prescriptive authority. The handbook recommends at least 200 of your hours with an NP, which is worth building in early if the practices near you are mostly physician-led.

Relatives by blood or marriage and close friends are ruled out, as is a clinic that employs you or someone in your family. An employer can still host you at a separate location or on another unit if the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator signs off. The preceptor requirements page covers every detail.

After a preceptor agrees, you record the placement on a Clinical Site Sheet; the college turns it into an Affiliation Agreement and a preceptor letter, then sends a "good to go" email before hours may start. Legal review of a first-time agreement runs 6 to 8 weeks and sometimes more, so the handbook advises beginning your search three to six months before the course.