The post-graduate AGACNP certificate at Graceland

Who the certificate is for

To enter, you need a master's in nursing (MN or MSN) from a program accredited by NLNAC or CCNE. Certificate students are not enrolled in a degree, and finishing the certificate makes them eligible for national certification exams. Graceland gives the FNP, AGACNP and PMHNP certificates a six-year time limit.

The certificate fits two kinds of applicant: a nurse practitioner certified in another population who wants acute care, and a master's-prepared nurse who has not yet trained as an NP. Graceland's program pages say core requirements can vary with the school you attended before or with a previous Graceland NP program on your record, so each plan is built individually by Program Advising.

Your RN license stays central. Every Graceland graduate student keeps an unencumbered RN license in the home state, plus one valid in each approved state that hosts practicum hours, and the proof must come from the board itself. An NP license does not replace it.

The same three practicums as the MSN

The clinical load is not lighter for certificate students. The certificate section of Graceland's AGACNP program page lists the practicums with the same hours as the handbook: 225, 225 and 300.

• NURS5450 AGACNP Practicum: Chronic Care: internal or hospital medicine for at least 150 hours, pulmonology for at least 75.
• NURS5460 AGACNP Practicum: Acute Care: intensive care, with the option of up to 75 hours in a single specialty.
• NURS5470 AGACNP Practicum: Final: critical care with an intensivist, emergency care, or both.

No Graceland source describes carrying practicum hours over from an earlier NP program, so plan on all 750 unless Program Advising tells you otherwise in writing. Anyone who matriculated before August 1, 2023 follows the earlier plan of 180 hours per course, 540 in all. The AGACNP site rules apply unchanged: hospital or specialist settings, no one under 13, no telehealth, one practicum per trimester.

The campus session and compliance

Certificate students attend the same on-campus session as MSN students. The catalog's certificate pages state that AGACNP students attend a focus session on campus, while FNP and PMHNP sessions are held on Zoom. It comes with NURS5195 Acute Care Diagnostics and Procedures II, which follows NURS5192, and runs two to three full days in Independence with no on-campus housing. Focus sessions explains the timing conflict between the course description and the handbook.

Castle Branch requirements mirror the MSN's, from the background check finished within your first term to the drug test due 4 to 6 weeks before NURS5450 starts, plus vaccination records, CPR, health insurance, the confidentiality form and your photo. ACLS appears in the handbook's Attachment A as an AGACNP-only item, and practicum registration waits until every item is complete.

Why certificate students choose us

You already know acute care or advanced practice; what you are short on is time. We run the search for all three practicums around your working schedule: an inpatient internist or hospitalist and a pulmonologist for NURS5450, an ICU outside your own unit for NURS5460, and an intensivist or emergency department service outside your specialty for NURS5470.

Every packet carries the details the two Graceland forms request and lands before your term's paperwork deadline, with your two-preceptor count and APRN hours planned across the whole certificate. We also flag early whether a hospital runs its own student request system, so the contract coordinators hear about it in time. When a preceptor leaves partway through, we source the replacement. Start with the form below or on our contact page.