UNCW's Clinical Placement Team: site lists, offered sites and the rule that comes with them

Who sits on the Clinical Placement Team

In UNCW's DNP Immersion and Clinical Overview handbook (Fall 2025), the Clinical Placement Team "consists of the GCCs, and members of the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) Applied Learning Operations team." It is the working engine of graduate placement, alongside the Graduate Clinical Coordinator's approval role. The handbook gives the team a long list of jobs:

• Sharing site lists with students who request them
• Posting available preceptors on Canvas discussion boards for students to claim
• Advising on and confirming new sites and preceptors that students identify
• Keeping a list of secured sites and preceptors
• Negotiating and maintaining affiliation agreements when a site requires one
• Adding your site and preceptor to Typhon, and sending site-specific paperwork on request
• Processing honorarium payments for sites that charge one, billed through your UNCW student account

For who approves what, and how course faculty fit in, see the Graduate Clinical Coordinator guide.

The condition attached to team help

Here is the sentence every UNCW NP student should know before asking for help. After saying the team will assist as needed, and that flexibility cannot be promised, the handbook continues: the student "will be expected to take a clinical site that is provided to them by the Clinical Placement Team. Failure to do so may result in withdrawal from the course and suspending progression in the program."

An offered site is judged on whether it meets the course objectives, not on your commute or your work schedule. UNCW makes transport the student's responsibility regardless of distance, and travel time never counts toward clinical hours. The site might also charge an honorarium, handled as paid clinical sites explains, or add its own requirements such as HIPAA or OSHA training, a recent physical exam or a digital photo.

Plan so the first site on file is yours

Each step here keeps the decision in your hands:

1. Start 6 to 12 months outUNCW's placement chart begins the search that early. Starting then leaves room to hear no a few times and still land a yes.
2. Secure a first choice and a backupLine up a second preceptor who fits the course before the first one signs. The guide to finding your own preceptor covers the outreach.
3. Favor sites with an existing agreementA site that already holds a UNCW affiliation agreement skips a contract step that can run six weeks or more. Confirm the status with the GCC.
4. File ahead of both timing linesRequests are handled first come, first served, with the soonest semester getting priority. The submission deadline page explains why the 90-day line is the one to beat.
5. Stay in touch until day oneThe handbook tells students to keep contact with preceptors until the rotation starts, because roles change, practices get acquired and life happens. If a preceptor wavers, act that week; preceptor dropped out covers the next moves.