Graceland's online MSN in adult-gerontology acute care

The degree course by course

The 2026-27 graduate catalog builds the degree from three blocks: a 14-credit core shared with the FNP and PMHNP tracks, 28 credits of AGACNP courses, and at least 3 elective credits. Electives range from rural health and nurse educator courses to NURS8140 Epidemiology.

Term-by-term plans live behind the login on the myGraceland SON Resources page, and each student begins on the full-time version. Program Advising builds and adjusts yours.

Where AGACNP hours can happen

Graceland keeps the AGACNP practicums in acute and specialty care. Sites should be in a hospital, a specialist's office or both, and the handbook lists three kinds that will not be approved: minute clinics, urgent care and primary care offices. AGACNP students should not see anyone younger than 13, and no telehealth hours count at any point in the program.

Each practicum aims for about 100 patients, at 16 to 24 hours a week, with every hour done by the end of week 14 and inside the United States or its territories. Only direct patient contact counts, and your first 8 hours in each course are mostly observation.

Above all this sits state approval. Graceland admits NP students only from states in which it is approved to run practicum experiences, publishes no list of those states, and asks you to check yours with the School of Nursing. Washington's nursing commission names MSN/AGACNP among the Graceland programs approved for practice experiences there. Graceland's June 2020 licensure chart is on state licensure disclosures.

Preceptors: who qualifies and who finds them

In the handbook's words, practicum experiences are "arranged by the student (with the assistance of GU)". You search, the Graduate Practicums Coordinator helps, and a contract coordinator or the AGACNP lead faculty approves every preceptor and site. The 2026 handbook also extends Graceland's optional placement service to AGACNP students, although some older Graceland pages still list it for FNP and PMHNP only.

A nurse practitioner preceptor needs a master's degree and one year or more in practice, though a second handbook page asks for 1 to 3 years; a physician needs board certification or board eligibility; a physician assistant never qualifies. One line to raise with the lead faculty: the handbook's general physician standard mentions board certification "in a primary care area of practice", while the AGACNP courses call for hospitalists, pulmonologists, intensivists and emergency physicians.

Plan for at least two different preceptors across the three courses, no more than two in any one, and at least 120 hours with an APRN or NP, which Graceland recommends for certification eligibility. All three AGACNP practicums share one lead faculty member. The handbook and Graceland's faculty listing name different people as AGACNP track coordinator, so use the contact in the current handbook or ask Program Advising.

Why AGACNP students choose us

Acute care placements are hospital placements, and hospitals move on their own calendars. We start your search as early as you like, sort inpatient internists and hospitalists from office practices before Graceland has to, and build a map of all three practicums: who covers chronic care and pulmonology, which ICU, which emergency department or intensivist, where your NP hours come from, and which preceptor might carry two terms.

For each course your advisor collects the Appendix A details, meaning the site's address and the person who signs its contracts, and the Appendix B details, meaning the preceptor's licensure, certification and years of practice, all ready ahead of your paperwork deadline. When a hospital runs its own student portal, you hear about it early so the contract coordinator does too. Share your city and start term in the form below.