NURS5450 AGACNP Practicum: Chronic Care
NURS5450 opens the Graceland University AGACNP practicum sequence: 225 hours for students who matriculated in August 2023 or later, with 150 or more of them spent beside an internist or hospitalist and 75 or more in pulmonology. The site has to be a hospital or a specialist's office, and the paperwork is due the term before you start.
Plan your NURS5450 preceptors
Tell us your city and the trimester you start NURS5450. Your placement advisor comes back with internal medicine and pulmonology options that fit Graceland's AGACNP rules.
The course in numbers
On this course, Graceland's sources line up. The 2026 Graduate Student Handbook and the AGACNP program page both give NURS5450 225 practice hours, and the program page splits its 4 semester hours into 1 didactic and 3 clinical. It is the first of three AGACNP practicums, and NURS5460 cannot start until it is done.
| Item | What Graceland publishes |
|---|---|
| Credits | 4 semester hours: 1 didactic, 3 clinical |
| Practicum hours | 225 if you matriculated August 1, 2023 or later; 180 if earlier |
| Physician time required | Internist or hospitalist: 150 hours minimum. Pulmonologist: 75 hours minimum |
| Patients | About 100 across the practicum |
| Weekly load | 16 to 24 hours a week in the clinical setting |
| Courses before it | Catalog: NURS5280 first, NURS5290 alongside. Handbook: NURS5270, NURS5280 and NURS5290 as prerequisites |
| Course after it | NURS5460 AGACNP Practicum: Acute Care |
The two lists of lead-in courses differ slightly, so the completion plan Program Advising gives you is the version to follow. Students returning from a withdrawal once Fall 2026 begins join the 225-hour group, as the 750-hour rule explains.
The 150 and 75 split, and the one-preceptor exception
Inside the 225 hours, the handbook sets two floors: a minimum of 150 hours in internal or hospital medicine, and a minimum of 75 in pulmonology. Unless one clinician covers both, that means two preceptors, often at two different addresses. Graceland does allow one shortcut: a hospitalist whose patient list includes pulmonology cases can be approved for the whole 225, so one preceptor and one site carry the course.
Two preceptors is also the most a Graceland practicum allows, so an internist plus a pulmonologist fills NURS5450 completely. When one of them takes a week off, Graceland lets one stand-in at your main site supervise you for as many as 40 hours with no new forms; beyond 40, the stand-in needs an approved Preceptor Application. The details are on changing or adding a preceptor.
Each extra office adds paperwork. The handbook's own tally: two preceptors working from two sites need a pair of Appendix A requests, a pair of Appendix B applications, two site contracts and two approval emails, while one pulmonologist working from three offices means three Appendix A requests, three contracts and three approval emails but a single Appendix B.
Settings Graceland approves for chronic care
The AGACNP section of the handbook points you toward the hospital: sites should be inpatient, a specialist's office, or a combination. It names three kinds of site that will not be approved for AGACNP students at all: minute clinics, urgent care clinics and primary care offices.
Settle one question before you commit. The course asks for an internist, and the track rules exclude primary care offices. An inpatient internist or a hospitalist satisfies both lines without argument; an internist whose practice is outpatient primary care may not. Ask the AGACNP lead faculty before you build 150 hours around an office-based internist.
Rules that follow you through every AGACNP practicum
- No patients younger than 13.
- No telehealth hours anywhere in the AGACNP program.
- Direct patient contact only: drug representative lunches and observing during hospital rounds are excluded.
- Off your own unit, and never under your boss, someone who reports to you, or a relative or partner; see practicums at your workplace.
- Every hour inside the United States and its territories.
An internist in a primary care office may not pass Graceland's AGACNP site rules. Confirm with the lead faculty before you submit Appendix A.
Pacing 225 hours before week 14
NURS5450 runs across the full 16-week trimester, but faculty ask for every hour to be logged by the end of week 14. Spread evenly, 225 hours over 14 weeks is a little over 16 hours a week, the low end of the 16 to 24 Graceland expects. The handbook's worked example of two eight-hour days for 14 weeks comes to 224.
With two preceptors, map both calendars before the term: which weeks the hospitalist is on service, and which clinic days the pulmonologist can offer. Banking the 150 hospital hours early, while pulmonology days are still being confirmed, keeps the finish line in reach.
Your opening 8 hours are largely observation, and from day two onward Graceland expects you to act as a beginning provider. Nothing counts before your approval email arrives or outside the term's dates, so a late approval comes straight out of those 14 weeks.
Starting the three-practicum preceptor plan
Your choices here shape the rest of the track. Across the three AGACNP practicums Graceland wants a minimum of two different preceptors, caps any single preceptor at two of the three terms, and asks for one primary preceptor named in each course. The two-preceptor rule walks through the combinations.
Certification is the second reason to plan now. Graceland advises logging 120 or more hours under an APRN or NP somewhere in the three courses, since ANCC and AANP eligibility rests on at least one documented APRN or NP experience. If both of your NURS5450 preceptors are physicians, write down now that the NP hours will come from NURS5460 or NURS5470.
Each preceptor also has to meet Graceland's baseline: nurse practitioners need a master's degree and a year or more of practice, physicians need board certification or eligibility, and a physician assistant is never accepted, even one on your hospitalist's own team.
Why AGACNP students choose us for NURS5450
We build this practicum exactly the way Graceland's handbook frames it. Your placement advisor looks for an inpatient internist or hospitalist and a pulmonologist within reach of home, checks whether one hospitalist with a pulmonology census could carry all 225 hours, and confirms that every site is a hospital or specialist setting the AGACNP rules accept.
Next we assemble what the contract coordinators ask for: each site's address and contract contact for Appendix A, and each preceptor's licensure, certification and years in practice for Appendix B, all in hand before your term's paperwork deadline of June 15, October 15 or February 15. We sketch likely preceptors for NURS5460 and NURS5470 at the same time, so your second preceptor and your NP hours are mapped from the start, and should a preceptor leave partway through the term, the replacement search starts immediately. Tell us your start term through the contact form.
Questions Graceland students ask
Can one hospitalist cover all 225 hours of NURS5450?
Yes, if Graceland approves it. The handbook lets a hospitalist who sees pulmonology patients cover the entire practicum, because the internal medicine and pulmonology hours can then be combined. Describe that patient mix clearly on your Appendix A and ask the AGACNP lead faculty to confirm the plan well before the paperwork deadline, since approval attaches to this preceptor and this caseload.
Can a pulmonology nurse practitioner supply the 75 pulmonology hours?
The handbook's wording is 75 hours "with a pulmonologist", and it does not say whether an NP working in a pulmonology practice satisfies it. Graceland accepts qualified NPs as preceptors in general, so this comes down to how the lead faculty reads the course requirement. Ask before you submit Appendix A, and keep an NP somewhere in your three-course plan either way.
Is telehealth allowed in NURS5450?
No. Graceland bars telehealth hours at every stage of the AGACNP program, so video follow-ups, phone visits and remote consults with pulmonology patients add nothing to the 225. Plan the pulmonology time as in-person clinic days or inpatient consult work with your approved preceptor, and log only direct patient contact.
What if the hospital I want runs its own student request system?
Let the contract coordinators know early, at soncontracts@graceland.edu. Under the handbook, a site that insists on its own software, website or request procedure for students has to be flagged to them, since the affiliation agreement then follows that system's timeline. Sites with their own request systems covers what to expect.
What happens if I matriculated before August 2023?
Your NURS5450 total is 180 hours, part of a 540-hour AGACNP track of three 180-hour practicums. The physician-time and setting rules still apply. If you withdraw and later return, Graceland treats you as a returning student on the current catalog, and from the start of Fall 2026 every returning student is on the 750-hour total.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Graceland's own catalog, program pages and Graduate Student Handbook. Your handbook, your track coordinator and the contract coordinators have the final word.
Graceland's practicums are arranged by you, with Graceland's help. We do the searching.
Tell us your Graceland track, your city and your next practicum. We find preceptors who fit the course, line up what Appendix A and Appendix B ask for, and aim everything at Graceland's paperwork deadline for your term.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP, hospital and ICU clinicians for AGACNP, psychiatrists and PMHNPs for PMHNP
- Site address, contract contact and preceptor details ready before the June 15, October 15 or February 15 deadline
- Close to home in your approved state, with a second preceptor planned for Graceland's two-preceptor rule
Start your placement plan
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