NUR 780M: the PMHNP practicum and its several placements

01NUR 780M at a glance

SAU's 2023-24 Graduate Catalog is the source for the code, semesters and credits below; nothing newer is publicly readable. The practicum may have been renumbered or split since, and Brightspace or your advisor can confirm what applies to you. The hour total comes from SAU's live PMHNP pages; an undated SAU blog post still says 570, which the current pages do not repeat.

02Why the course asks for more than one placement

The 2023-24 course description tells PMHNP students to plan to engage different clinical placements over the course. It does not say how many, which settings, or how the 500 hours should divide between them. It does set the population as psychiatric-mental health across the lifespan.

The didactic courses show what that lifespan means in practice. NUR 714 covers adults and NUR 715 covers children, adolescents and young adults, after NUR 712 (neurobiology and psychopathology) and NUR 713 (psychopharmacology). A single adult outpatient practice may not give you the younger patients the coursework expects, which is one plain reason the course points you toward more than one site.

SAU publishes no quota for child and adolescent hours, so ask course faculty early what mix they want to see in your logs. Their answer decides how many preceptors you need.

03Building a two-semester placement plan

1. Ask faculty about the mixFind out what age range and settings course faculty expect across both semesters before you contact anyone.
2. Map candidate preceptors by populationFor each lead, note whether the panel is adult, child and adolescent, or both, and where the gaps are.
3. Secure the second placement earlyEach new site needs its own clinical agreement, affiliation and preceptor verification paperwork, which the 2023-24 catalog wants filed at least four weeks ahead of the course.
4. Submit each preceptor for approvalA second site means a second faculty approval, not an extension of the first.
5. Log hours by placementKeep each site's hours separate so the total and the mix are easy to show. The hour logs page covers how.

04Who can precept NUR 780M

SAU's NP practicums, per the 2023-24 catalog, take a certified NP, physician or PA from your area, approved by program faculty. For psychiatric work, a PMHNP or a psychiatrist is the most natural fit. Whether faculty would accept a family NP or a non-psychiatric physician who sees many mental health patients is not published, so ask before you submit one. Each placement is approved on its own, so the answer can differ between your first and second site.

SAU also publishes nothing on telehealth hours, employer sites or years of preceptor experience. If a psychiatric practice offers you mostly virtual visits, get a faculty answer in writing first; the virtual clinical options page lays out what to ask. The wider rules are on the preceptor requirements page.

05The NUR 770M question and SAU's 2026 support line

A third-party PMHNP directory lists SAU's current sequence as NUR 770M PMHNP Clinical Experience I followed by NUR 780M PMHNP Clinical Experience II. The listing is undated, and no SAU source that can be read confirms it. Treat NUR 770M as unconfirmed. If your Brightspace course list shows two codes, the 500-hour total on SAU's program page is still the number to plan around.

The PMHNP pages (MSN, RN-to-MSN and the certificate) are among the six that, since 2026, describe SAU working with students on placements near their preferred location and mention a clinical partner network. No page names the partners or promises a site. The partner network page covers what that line means, and the PMHNP track page handles the wider program.

06Getting the psychiatric placements in place

Because the course expects more than one placement, the search for NUR 780M is best started well before its first semester, while you are still in NUR 712 and NUR 713. Each extra site brings its own approval and its own four-week paperwork deadline, so a late start costs more here than in a single-site practicum.

A placement advisor searches for PMHNPs, psychiatrists and psychiatric practices near you, sorts leads by the populations they see, and gathers what faculty review for each site. If a preceptor withdraws partway through, we keep looking. Approval rests with SAU's faculty for every preceptor and site, and every psych site goes to them with a complete file of its own. Certificate students can read the PMC-PMHNP page for their own route. When you are ready, tell us your semester dates.