Benefits of Precepting
The PLU mission is:
Educating for lives of thoughtful inquiry, service, leadership, and care—for other people, for their communities and for the Earth.
Join our mission! Become a Preceptor!
Be the bridge between Academics and Practice
- Help create the next nurse practitioners.
Preceptors have the power to role model, teach, nurture, guide, and create nurse practitioners to continue the tradition of our important role. - Give back or pay it forward.
Each practitioner was once a student who needed and benefitted from preceptors. Participate in that tradition and legacy. - Contribute to the next nurse practitioners to improve the access to and the quality of health care in our region. Then, through improved access and quality of care, we improve the health of the people in our community.
- Giving is also a chance to receive; teaching is also an opportunity to learn.
Precepting keeps the nurse practitioner inspired, stimulated, rewarded, and invigorated to stay up to date and to keep all clinical skills and knowledge polished. Students can teach us by reminding us of what we have learned. Preceptors who feel uncertain often find having a student reinforces how much they do know. Students can teach us also from their unique set of life experiences and lifetime learning. - Receive clear information about expectations, your role, the student’s role, and the clinical faculty’s role.
Enjoy Concrete Benefits
- Free continuing education (CE) credits, up to 8 hours yearly, at Pacific Lutheran University’s Center for Continued Nursing Learning (CCNL). Preceptors are also eligible for a discount on all other CE at the CCNL.
- For PLU alumni, get 10% tuition discount at PLU , for example for a post-master’s DNP degree (not limited to preceptors).
- Free access to Basics of Precepting. Contact clinical faculty for password.
- Add preceptor Certificates and Awards to the Honors section of your resume, curriculum vitae, or job evaluation.
- Free education, training, coaching, and personal support for becoming and being a preceptor. See links to CCNL, AANP, NONPF, and other Resources and Toolkits.
- Free invitation to PLU’s annual Research Day where DNP students formally present their doctoral projects.
- Find your next colleague: While helping to create the next generation or specifically next year’s NPs, you might be creating your next colleague. Precepting allows students to become familiar with your health system and allows you to become familiar with them. Choosing new colleagues from former student preceptees means less time orienting and more likelihood of meeting your expectations.
- Fill unmet needs: Research shows (Ritten et al., 2015) that NP students who have clinical practice experiences in medically underserved areas, rural areas, and health professional shortage areas are more likely to work in the same site after graduation than students who did not have these experiences.
- Access free administrative project help. DNP nurse practitioner students can work with your practice site to conduct their doctoral project, often a quality improvement project. Whether or not you precept a NP student clinically, you may request a possible project from a DNP student. Contact the Clinical Project Coordinator, Jennifer Bolin bolinj@plu.edu 253-535-7082.
- Get documentation for re-certification. Each semester PLU will note, track, and acknowledge your preceptor hours. The NP programs will then provide you with a formal thank you letter to document your precepting hours. For questions please contact Heather Graves at heather.graves@plu.edu. Note that AANP recognizes precepting as an option qualifying for up to 25 hours of non-pharmacology continuing education credit for re-certification https://www.aanpcert.org/recert/ce. Access through the following link the AANP Certification Board Preceptorship/Preceptor Form for re-certification: https://www.aanpcert.org/resource/documents/Preceptor%20Form.pdf.
Ref: Ritten, A., Waldrop, J., Wink, D. (2015). NP students learning from medically underserved: Impact on attitudes towards poverty. Journal of Nursing Education, 54,(7), 389-93.
Further Your Career Development
- Add precepting NP students to your resume or curriculum vitae or other record of accomplishments.
- Obtain PLU faculty support, recommendations, and connections for pursuing higher degrees, for being co-authors on articles, for writing grants, for conducting research, and for other professional projects.
- Request letters of reference and recommendation from PLU clinical faculty for your employer’s performance evaluation.
- Request letters of reference and recommendation from PLU clinical faculty for applications for new employment and for applications for continuing your formal education such as pursuing a DNP or PhD.
Last updated March 8, 2023
Don’t see what you were looking for? Is a link broken? Contact heather.graves@plu.edu.
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