Preparing for Graduate Clinical Practicum
Preparing for Graduate Clinical PracticumPreparing for Your Clinical Practicum
Please read thoroughly to avoid delays or cancellations of your practicum.
- Please familiarize yourself with the steps for preparing for your clinical practicum. You should start early, especially if your site requires an Affiliation Agreement.
- You can start to prepare for your practicum at any time. Allow enough time to complete all the requirements before you start your practicum.
- Check your UMass email address frequently, twice a week at least, since you will be sent important information through the UMass email.
- If you have a name change, please inform the Clinical Coordinator dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau). You will also need to change it formally through SPIRE.
- It is important that you maintain good communication with your practicum site to ensure all onboarding paperwork is complete. Some sites do not need anything from UMass. They may ask you to directly give them your health documents or other forms.
- Important: You must be licensed as an RN in the state where you are planning to complete your clinical hours as an NP student. You must have either an RN license in that state or a compact RN license and are completing your clinicals in a compact state.
- If your clinical site requires paperwork from the college, it is up to you to find out what is required by your site, and let dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) know. Some sites need verification or attestation letters, others do not have any requirements. Each practicum site is different, with different procedures and forms. You should ask your site when, or if, they need paperwork from the College of Nursing, and allow enough time for us to provide the documentation.
- ajuno [at] umass [dot] edu (AJ Juno) is the contact for all questions.
1. Affiliation Agreement Request Form
Note: Do not confuse an affiliation agreement with the Student-Preceptor Form. Remember, an affiliation agreement may not be needed at all; check with your site.
The first step is finding out if your site needs an affiliation agreement. You must ask the correct person or department. If an agreement is needed, this process can take many months. UMass Amherst DOES NOT need an agreement.
An affiliation agreement is a contract between UMass Amherst and the corporation or owner that owns the site of your practicum. UMass does not need an affiliation agreement for you to do your practicum. But some sites do. For the many sites that do not, you can go there without the lengthy process it takes to complete an agreement. Once an agreement is finished, it will last for years. The typical expiration date is 3-5 yrs, but many never expire.
- It is your responsibility to find out if an agreement is needed. The first thing you need to do is ask them. If you don’t know who to ask, start with the HR department or the administration. Your preceptor might not know. If you give AJ the wrong person who does not work with agreements, that can create delays. If your site has any questions, AJ would be happy to answer. You are free to give AJ’s contact information.
- Allow enough time to execute an agreement. It can take 2 to 6 months to complete. Six months is rare, but it does happen. And sometimes, even rarer, UMass and the site cannot reconcile our disagreements, and the affiliation agreement is not completed. It is best to have a back-up site available in case this happens.
- You need to be approved by your site to do your practicum before you ask for an affiliation agreement.
- You can always write AJ to find out if we already have an agreement with a site.
Complete the Online Form (if needed)
If your site needs an affiliation agreement, find out the contact person that AJ will be working with and gather the following information:
- Full Site Name
- Full Contact Name
- Title
- Phone Number
- Mailing Address
- Semester you will start
Then, complete the online form. AJ needs all the info the form asks for before she will start working on an agreement. Do not email her this information—submit it via the online form. It will go directly to AJ when you submit.
After you fill out the online request form, you are always free to email AJ directly with questions, updates, or changes. It is important that you get the correct person at the site, otherwise there can be long delays. Once AJ has all the info needed the process will begin and you will be notified when completed, or if there are problems.
2. Clinical Sites, Preceptor Forms, Preceptor and Student Typhon Accounts
Typhon
If you are new to Typhon and do not have a student login, email dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) who will send you Typhon login information. There is a one-time fee of $100 for the NP and Psych Certification tracks, and a $70 for Nursing Education tracks that the student is responsible for. Your Typhon account will last up to 5 years after you graduate so you can take advantage of your Typhon Portfolio.
Note: If you had a Typhon account from another school, it is NOT transferable.
There is a section within Typhon for “Video Tutorials”. Click on that. Choose “Student Tutorial” from the list of videos. There is a 71-minute long video that goes over everything you’ll need for your Typhon account. You can forward it to the spot on the video that speaks to filling in your case logs.
dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) will send your preceptor their Typhon login based on the Preceptor Form you fill out in DocuSign (see below) if they don’t already have an account from a previous semester. The preceptor’s account is theirs indefinitely and they can use it for more than one student.
If the student or the preceptor forgets their password, or if their email link has expired for the Typhon account, please contact dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau).
SAMPLE LETTER to Prospective Preceptor
Note: See Graduate Handbook for more information.
Hello _________,
I am a (Family Nurse Practitioner, Adult Gerontological Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Public Health Nurse Leader) DNP student or (Clinical Nurse Leader student) who is looking for a preceptor for my (list course name) practicum. I am impressed with your (list practice specialty such as family) practice and (list the strengths of the preceptor and any other reasons why you are interested in practicing there. An example of this would be (his/her) years of experience in a clinical area). I would be honored to be able to do my practicum with you.
I have had experience with (list your experience). My area of interest is (list your area of interest). Please see my CV that is attached to this email.
I would love to meet with you to discuss this further. Please let me know what day and time work best for you to meet by phone or in person and I will arrange it.
I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn from you in the clinical setting. Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Student Name:
Student email:
[Attached copy of your CV]
Complete Student Preceptor Form
Once you have a site and a preceptor, you will need to guide them in the next steps:
- Complete the Student-Preceptor Form online via DocuSign.
- The preceptor will receive the form to sign via Adobe E-Sign.
- The information from the form will be used to set up a Typhon preceptor account.
- Additionally, send the preceptor the link to our Graduate Clinical Placement information. The Graduate Preceptor Handbook is on the right-hand side near the bottom.
Notes:
- Even if you’ve had the same preceptor in a previous semester, you are required to fill out the Student-Preceptor from each semester.
- You may have more than one preceptor in a semester. For each preceptor you will need to complete a Student-Preceptor Form.
- Once your preceptor has a Typhon account, the account is theirs indefinitely, and they can use it for more than one student.
The Student-Preceptor Form requires the following information:
- Student’s full name and email address
- Course # (The course # starts with “N”. Please write in the Clinical course, not the Didactic course that accompanies it.)
- EMCON Professor (if known)
- Affiliation Dates, Semester/Year
- The Preceptor’s name and business email address (their personal email is optional)
- Is the preceptor board certified? If yes, please provide license number and expiration date if known.
- Preceptor’s credentials, specialty, practice/group name, phone number, address.
- Optional: Clinical site website address, administrative contact information.
VERY IMPORTANT!
Before you fill out the form, you’ll need to provide DocuSign the exact name that the preceptor will sign on the document and their email address. When the preceptor receives the DocuSign, they just click the button, and the name is signed with whatever you previously entered on the first page. If this is not how the preceptor wants to sign, or it is misspelled, they might refuse to sign. Be sure to enter their name and email address accurately, or they will not receive the email asking them to sign the form.
After you sign, it automatically goes to the preceptor. When they sign, all parties get the completed copy. Dorian gets copies at each stage.
- Obtain a CV (resume) from your preceptor and email it to dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau). The preceptor may send this directly to Dorian if they prefer.
3. Preceptor Hours Letter
The College can send a formal letter verifying “hours precepted” to any preceptor who requests one. Please let your preceptor know they may ask for this letter. The student or preceptor should contact dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) to request the letter. Provide Dorian with the preceptor’s name, the preceptor’s site, the student name they were a preceptor for, and exact date range or semester/year. Dorian will run the report matching that information in Typhon and create a Preceptor Hours Letter that will be sent directly to the preceptor.
4. Centralized Clinical Placements (CCP)
CCP (Centralized Clinical Placements): Applies to Specific Massachusetts Hospitals.
For students who are doing their practicums in a Massachusetts CCP facility, such as Boston Med, Mass General, Brigham and Women’s, Cooley Dickinson, etc., a request for clinical placement must be made using CCP.
Contact kbobians [at] nursing [dot] umass [dot] edu (Katy Bobianski), who will enter your information into CCP.
Katy will need from you:
- a copy of your CV
- your course number,
- number of hours required,
- your start and end date,
- if you are an employee of the institution,
- and which area you are looking (Example: Primary Pediatric Care).
- You should include your preceptor if you have one who has agreed to work with you, and their unit/dept.
These MA sites will also require you to complete their “HCO facility-specific material” in CCP. You complete this by first completing the CCP’s 4 module orientation (see below), then you are directed to the specific facility’s orientation that is also required.
Avoid directly contacting the unit managers in these MA facilities when seeking approval. The nurse educators who approve the practicums require that you follow the procedures by having UMass staff be their only contact. These placements are highly competitive, especially in the Boston area, and making an end-run around the nurse educators can cause them to reject your application.
CCP Orientation for HIPAA & OSHA (to be uploaded to CastleBranch) FOR ALL STUDENTS:
- CCP, which is run by the Mass. Dept. of Health, has an orientation that ALL students need to complete, even if you do not reside in MA. Most of the facilities where students will do their clinicals require that we train students in HIPAA, OSHA, fire and safety, etc. You only need to do this once. You will complete 4 modules. You do NOT need to do the additional facility specific module (unless you are going to a MA site that requires this). Please download a completion ticket which is proof that you did the 4 modules and upload into CastleBranch.
- To download a completion ticket when you don’t know your Clinical Site (HCO), use: 1-Generic Site. If you need to give an instructor name, you can use, 1-GenericInstructor. By uploading this completion ticket into CastleBranch we know you have completed the CCP Modules required.
- Make sure you download a completion ticket before June 31, since each year CCP archives all records and starts anew on July 1. You are only required to complete the modules once.
- Instructions for completing CCP Orientation will be available in Blackboard/Canvas and are also in CastleBranch.
5. CastleBranch Account for Students
Students are required to set up an account with CastleBranch, our third-party vendor, after admission into the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing. Please be aware that students need to have their pre-clinical requirements completed, all required documents must be uploaded into and accepted by CastleBranch before starting any clinical placements.
Note: This account will take you some time to gather and upload all the documents required, so it would be best to start this far enough in advance of your planned clinical rotation. You will not be allowed into a clinical setting until your CastleBranch account is complete.
Do not send health or background information to the College of Nursing.
You will be responsible for uploading evidence of your immunizations and required documents into the self-service system about two months before your first clinical. Earlier is advised.
- Go to: www.castlebranch.com and choose: “Place Order”.
- Your PIN number is your SPIRE ID number.
- The email address you use when placing your order will become your username for your CastleBranch account and will be the primary form of communication for alerts and messages regarding your health and certification records requirements. You can respond to any active alerts or To-Do list items by logging into your CastleBranch account. You will receive alerts if information is needed to process your order, and as requirements approach their due dates. Access your CastleBranch account anytime to view order stats and completed results. Please do not share your login or password.
- Enter your program “Package Code” (please see the package codes below) and click “Submit”.
- You need to place an order for two (2) package codes: one for the main account and the second for the separate background check. The background check is a national check. This separate background check is mandatory for all students – one time only. This is different from the CORI form that is in the regular account, which you will also complete. Some sites require a background check to be done within a certain time frame, such as no later than three (3) months or one (1) year from the start of their clinicals (this is rare). In that case you must follow the requirements of the site, even if you have already completed a background check earlier.
- The easiest way to upload documents to your CastleBranch account is to download the CastleBranch app from your app store on your iPhone/iPad or Android device. Search for “My CB” after setting up your account via web browser and you will be able to snap a picture of a document directly into your to-do list.
- Read or watch the CastleBranch tutorials. Do NOT upload your documents to “Medical Records”. You need to upload your documents individually to each of the items listed.
- If you have any questions or disagree with a rejection from CastleBranch, contact them directly. You can always reach out to dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) if you have any concerns or questions.
- Your specific site may require information not listed. You will need to follow what your site requires. The University has no control over a site’s requirements.
CastleBranch Support
For any questions about CastleBranch, contact CastleBranch Customer Support. The CastleBranch service desk is available to assist you via phone, chat, and email Monday-Friday 8:00 A.M. – 8:00 P.M. EST. Their phone number is: (888) 723-4263.
dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau) is your UMass support person for CastleBranch.
Package Codes
DNP (FNP, PMHNP, AGNP, PHNL) Students and Post-Masters Psych Certificate Students:
- The code for the main account is UM28 – no fee.
- Background Check = UP60bg. This is a one-time requirement – $43.00
- If you live in Puerto Rico use this code: UP60PR
- If your site requires a Drug Test, the code is UP60dt. Optional, as needed for site – $44.00.
For students in placements in the Baystate Medical System, a Drug Screen is required.
CNL & Nursing Education Masters Students:
- The code for the main account is UM29
- Background Check = UP60bg – Required, one-time fee - $43.00
- Drug Test = UP60dt – Optional, as needed for site - $44.00
Immunization and Health Requirements:
Note: These requirements are standard for the majority of the clinical sites, but some facilities have additional requirements. Please refer to your specific clinical site’s requirements.
- Tdap – Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis Vaccine (within last 10 years).
- 2 vaccines of MMR received after 1968 or positive antibody titers required for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, if antibody test is negative, your medical professional will determine boosters or repeat vaccinations.
- Hepatitis B Series — 3 vaccines and positive antibody titer
- Varicella (Chicken pox) — One of the following is required: 2 vaccines or a positive antibody titer or history of disease (provider verification required). If titer is negative or equivocal you will be required to confer with your provider and choose to receive a booster and repeat titer or repeat vaccination series.
- TB- 2-Step PPD followed by yearly PPD or a negative T-spot within the past 12 months. If positive submit clear chest X-ray and TB questionnaire on school form both dated within past 12 months.
- Seasonal Flu Vaccine Required
- COVID vaccines and booster Required
- Current Physical with date and comments (within one year of entry into first clinical).
- CPR Certification (Must be from the American Heart Association Healthcare Provider Course (BLS) or ACLS. American Red Cross or online courses are not acceptable.)
- Medical Release Authorization
- Complete your Medical Release Authorization.
- After you sign and submit your form, DocuSign will email you the signed form. Please upload the signed form into CastleBranch.
- Obtain Professional Liability Insurance. NSO is one company many students use. If you use another company they must have the following coverage: Professional Liability: $1M per claim and $6M aggregate; and Information Privacy (HIPAA) Fines & Penalties: $25K per incident and $25K aggregate.
Contacts
kbobians [at] nursing [dot] umass [dot] edu (Katy Bobianski)
Katy is our Graduate Clinical Placement Coordinator. Katy will work with you to find a clinical site if you are having trouble finding one on your own. Katy can also answer questions about the appropriateness of a site or preceptor. If you would like assistance to find a clinical site, please email Katy. Be sure to include your specialty track, the name and number of the clinical course, and the State you will be living in during the clinical semester.
Katy will also help with entries into the Centralized Clinical Placement (CCP) system that may be required by specific sites in Massachusetts.
dpariseau [at] umass [dot] edu (Dorian Pariseau)
Dorian can help you after you have been accepted for placement at a site. She will help you with Typhon Accounts for students and preceptors (Typhon is the database where you will record preceptor hours), Preceptor Hours Letters, CastleBranch, onboarding requirements the site might need such as verification letters, and paperwork on immunizations, background checks, computer access, etc. Please note: Each site is different, and some sites do not require any paperwork. Dorian can also help with SPIRE, Registration, and Plans of Study.
ajuno [at] umass [dot] edu (AJ Juno)
AJ can answer any questions about affiliation agreements.
For all academic questions about your course: Please ask your instructor, including questions about what type of preceptor or site is acceptable, hours required, or anything to do with the class work or grading.
Bill Leahy