NC AHEC and your clinical rotations: what UNCW students can use

What NC AHEC is, and where UNCW fits

NC AHEC is a statewide network of regional centers that supports health sciences students from North Carolina colleges and universities. It reports facilitating the teaching of medical, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, certified nurse midwifery and pharmacy students at community sites across the state, with more than 2,234 individual preceptors, and it offers preceptors informational and educational support plus full access to the AHEC Digital Library.

UNC Wilmington appears on NC AHEC's list of primary academic partners and affiliated universities, alongside Duke, East Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest and Methodist. That affiliation counts in two places a UNCW student will notice: how AHEC weighs housing applications, and how the housing is billed.

The regional centers a UNCW student meets

• SEAHEC, Wilmington: five counties, Duplin and Columbus inland plus New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick. It is part of Novant Health NHRMC, and roughly 250 preceptors train medical, NP, pharmacy and PA students through it. Its address is seahec.net; seahec.org is a different, Arizona-based AHEC.
• Eastern AHEC, Greenville: covers Onslow County, so Jacksonville rotations fall under it, including its student housing there.
• Wake AHEC: hosts the NC Consortiums for Clinical Education and Practice, the source of the standard NC Core Orientation passport many hospitals ask for.
• Piedmont AHEC: hosts the Clinical Precepting modules and publishes its own student housing rules.

Rules can differ from one region to the next, so check the center serving the county where your rotation sits. Wilmington NP preceptors covers the SEAHEC counties site by site, and NP preceptors across North Carolina explains the hospital platforms and the orientation passport.

Preceptor development: CP 101 to 106 and the Digital Library

UNCW's Preceptor's Corner points preceptors to AHEC's interprofessional Clinical Precepting series, self-paced modules hosted by Piedmont AHEC:

• CP 101: the clinical preceptor's role, the host clinical site and legal considerations
• CP 102: planning for and providing clinical learning experiences
• CP 103: communication, learner self-assessment and preceptor feedback
• CP 104: managing difficult situations
• CP 105: inclusive precepting practices
• CP 106: disability inclusion

Piedmont's own page lists the first four; UNCW's list adds 105 and 106. Preceptors can also reach the AHEC Digital Library through MyAHEC, on top of the UNCW Library electronic resources UNCW extends to its preceptors. For a clinician weighing a first UNCW student, the series is a practical on-ramp, and precepting a UNCW student covers the rest.

How we put AHEC to work in a UNCW search

When the best-fit preceptor sits far from home, we tell you at the matching stage, name the AHEC region that serves the site, and point you to the MyAHEC application so housing moves in step with UNCW's approval instead of trailing it. For Cape Fear rotations we know which towns have SEAHEC apartments, and for Jacksonville we look to Eastern AHEC.

We also give preceptors a clear summary of what UNCW asks of them and the development resources open to them, which makes the request easier for a first-time preceptor. UNCW's Graduate Clinical Coordinator approves every placement, and the packet we prepare gives that review everything it needs on the first read. The form below is the place to begin.