Clinical Placements
As a nursing student in one of our prelicensure or graduate clinical programs, we support your academic journey by finding clinical placements for you.
The Clinical Placement Office and our nursing faculty have developed a summary of information related to the clinical experiences and precepted placements. This information provides clarity on the placement process and the expectations related to the precepted clinical experience.
The Clinical Placement team does not find placements for DNP or DNE students, but they do help with other supports for those students. The team is not involved with the following programs: RN to BSN, MHI, MCR or PhD.
Pre-licensure students
As a pre-licensure student, you are required to take several clinical courses in order to progress in your program. Pre-licensure programs include BSN, Graduate Entry (first 5 semesters of program), LPN-BSN and aBSN. Pre-licensure students must complete the following clinical experiences: nursing care of adults and older adults I and II (two semesters), children and their families, women and infants during reproductive transitions, population health and psychiatric and mental health. You are placed in a clinical group of typically eight students at an assigned site. A College of Nursing clinical instructor will also be on the site to supervise and instruct.
For most clinical courses, students are required to complete 6-12 hours per week at your assigned clinical site. You will schedule a course with a clinical section in Buckeye Link and this will determine your group placement. In general, you will not have the option to select a particular clinical site. Depending on the clinical course, you may or may not have the ability to select your clinical schedule. Course faculty determine student placement assignments, and you should contact the relevant course head faculty with any questions.
About three months prior to starting their precepted clinical experience, senior BSN traditional, aBSN and LPN-BSN students will be required to complete an online survey. This survey provides students with the opportunity to express clinical placement preferences (nursing unit, hospital, shift, etc.). Preferences are taken into consideration, but ultimately students are assigned to a placement based on preceptor availability and student learning needs as determined by faculty.
Many clinical agencies have placement processes in place, and they will not accept placement requests directly from you. The Clinical Placement Office works closely with nurse managers and agency administrators to ensure you receive placements with qualified preceptors on a unit that can accommodate the required educational experience. If you have a suggestion for a preceptor, you should discuss this with the head of that course. You should not reach out to clinical agencies without prior approval.
For most group placements, you will be able to select a clinical day that works best with your schedule. Faculty will inform you where you will be rotating, usually at least a week prior to the start of the semester. For precepted placements, the Clinical Placement Office will email you your preceptor’s name, email address, clinical site/unit and shift (days, evenings or nights) around the start of the semester. We strive to provide as much advanced notice as possible, but we often do not receive placement confirmations until right before the term begins.
Clinical placements are in high demand, and clinical schedule options are limited. We advise you to make your clinical courses a priority, particularly for precepted experiences. When scheduling for the semester, your precepting schedule could fluctuate. Contact your academic advisor (BSN, aBSN, LPN-BSN) or faculty advisor (Graduate Entry) for assistance when scheduling. If working, we encourage you to discuss your scheduling needs with your managers/employers. There are few opportunities to complete clinical experiences on nights and weekends. You will complete the majority of your clinical experiences during university business hours.
We have the privilege to have partnerships with several world-renowned hospital systems and clinical agencies, including The Ohio State University’s own Wexner Medical Center. All prelicensure placements are in central Ohio. Some clinical sites are located off campus so access to a vehicle is highly recommended.
Yes, you must be fully compliant prior to clinical experiences and must remain so through the duration of the clinical experience. The College of Nursing tracks your clinical compliance using Beacon. If you’re found to be non-compliant, you cannot attend clinicals, and you may not have the opportunity to make up these hours thus delaying progression. Some clinical sites will require additional onboarding requirements including online and in-person training. The Clinical Placement Office and/or course faculty will support you with necessary onboarding requirements.
APRN and Nurse Midwifery students
Includes Graduate Entry and BSN to DNP students in the APRN/CNM phase of training
Clinical placement assignments result from a collaboration between the Clinical Placement Office and faculty. You are surveyed about your placement preferences in October before the start of your clinical year. Preferences are taken into consideration, but there are many other factors that go into final placement decisions, including preceptor availability and educational objectives. The Clinical Placement Office has partnerships with over 1,000 agencies and staff work year-round to secure placements for students. Clinical Placement staff meet with faculty weekly or biweekly to assign students to sites as placements become available. You will most likely be assigned to a site about a month prior to the semester start. At this time, the Clinical Placement Office will directly email your site location and preceptor contact information.
We appreciate our students’ efforts in expanding our preceptor network. We strongly suggest that students with preceptor leads contact Clinical Placement Office and faculty for guidance before reaching out to a potential preceptor or clinical site. Many larger health systems have a clinical placement process and may only accept placement requests from the designated Clinical Placement Coordinator.
If you find someone interested in being a clinical site or preceptor, email the Clinical Placement Office who will work with your faculty to obtain their approval. Students should provide a contact name and email address so we can get an Educational Affiliation Agreement in place. It is generally easier to get an agreement in place with a smaller practice. Please allow at least 3-6 months to get a contract in placement with a larger healthcare system.
Students may not work with family members during their clinical year. Preceptors evaluate student performance and a relative may not be able to evaluate you objectively. However, you should ask your family members if they have a colleague that would be willing to work with you or if they would be willing to work with one of your classmates.
Students are encouraged to network with potential preceptors at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center with whom they have a personal or professional connection. However, before the experience can be confirmed, faculty approval is required. When contacting any OSUWMC preceptor lead, please express your gratitude for their support and mention that you will put their name forward for faculty approval. Additionally, inform them that Clinical Placement will reach out to confirm the placement approximately 1-3 months before the start date of the clinical rotation.
Out-of-state students must develop a list of leads to Clinical Placement, who will work with you to obtain your faculty approval. The list should include contact names and email addresses so the clinical placement team can initiate the contract process as quickly as possible. Clinical placements for out-of-state students result from the collaboration between students, faculty and the Clinical Placement Office. While we make every attempt to locate a clinical placement in the student’s geographical region, students may need to travel to Ohio to obtain required clinical hours.
Many clinical sites require students to apply by a specific deadline in order to be considered for a placement. The Clinical Placement Office works with faculty to identify students to apply for these opportunities. If you are asked to apply to a particular site then you must proceed with the application in order to receive priority placement. In most cases, students who do not apply as directed will not receive an alternative placement.
Unfortunately, we cannot take personal factors into account when making placement decisions. Many students have families, jobs and other obligations so it is unfair to give a particular student special consideration. The Clinical Placement Office estimates that nearly 90 percent of students are placed a month before the semester starts so we have made a commitment to notify students on this timeline. Some students will know earlier, and a few students will know later. Many clinical sites approve placement requests on a strict timeline that we must follow so advanced notice is often not an option.
Most students will have to travel at some point during their clinical year. There is no limit to the distance you may have to travel to meet your clinical learning objectives. The faculty considers placements based on the quality of the educational experience, and site location is often not a determining factor. Only students who have registered with Ohio State’s Office of Disability Services may be given special accommodations regarding travel.
Placement decisions are final. The Clinical Placement Office does not have the capacity to find a second placement for you. Faculty work hard to ensure that all students are matched to a site/preceptor that best meets their educational needs. Your preferences are taken into consideration, but we cannot guarantee that you will be assigned to your ideal placement. Often students who are initially disappointed with their placement end up having an excellent experience.
Students enrolled in an APRN/Nurse Midwifery program may reach out to Clinical Placement Office for general questions. Current students should be aware that Clinical Placement will likely add their faculty to the response. Clinical Placement can provide guidance and insight into the clinical placement process, but it is not within the scope of their role to assign students to clinical learning opportunities.