Your Gonzaga preceptor dropped out. Here is the next move.
Preceptors leave for ordinary reasons: a new job, a leave of absence, a clinic that changes its student policy. What matters is the next few days. Tell Gonzaga at once, stop logging at that site, and get a replacement approved under the same rules as the first. We rebuild the placement around the hours you still need.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Gonzaga program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Gonzaga course.
The first two days
- Tell course and clinical facultyWrite to your course faculty and clinical faculty the day you find out, with your hours to date and the weeks left in the course. Copy the Clinical Placement Team so a site search can begin.
- Stop logging at that siteGonzaga counts hours only with your approved preceptor. A colleague at the same clinic is a new preceptor who needs approval before any hour with them counts.
- Bring your log up to dateEnter every completed encounter in Typhon, or in CORE if your cohort has moved, so your verified hours are clear to everyone.
- Ask about the departing preceptor's evaluationGonzaga treats the preceptor evaluation as documentation that you were in the clinical setting. Ask course faculty which form applies; Gonzaga's list includes a short FNP form for fewer than 20 hours.
- Send us the detailsYour course, hours remaining, weeks left and licensed state are enough for your placement advisor to start.
How the two-preceptor limit shapes your options
Gonzaga allows no more than two approved preceptors in a semester, and the one who left counts as one of them. If they were your only preceptor, one slot remains for the rest of the term. If you already had two, a third falls outside the rule, and the conversation with course faculty turns to finishing the hours in a later term.
FNP students also need to protect the nurse practitioner share, since at least half of FNP hours must be with an NP. If an NP left and a physician is the quickest replacement, check the math across the whole program before you accept. Our pages on the two-preceptor rule and the FNP hours mix go further.
What a replacement preceptor needs
A replacement passes through the same gate as the original. The new preceptor must meet Gonzaga's criteria, the site needs an active affiliation agreement, and faculty approve the new request before a single hour counts. If the replacement works at the same site, the existing agreement may already cover it; the Clinical Placement Team can confirm.
Speed comes from a complete request. Collect the new preceptor's license for your state, national certification and experience in the clinical area, along with the site contact, before you submit. The site placement request page lists what faculty review.
The new preceptor also steps into your three points of contact, which you coordinate. Ask clinical faculty how the remaining contacts will run with the new preceptor, especially the mid-term site visit. See the three points of contact.
How we replace a preceptor mid-term
Replacement is part of the service, not an add-on. If we placed you and your preceptor steps away, your placement advisor opens a new search the day you tell us, with your course, hours left and weeks left as the brief.
If someone else found your first preceptor, we can still take on the replacement. We search your licensed state for the provider type the course calls for, confirm credentials and the agreement path before you hear a name, and prepare the new site request so faculty can move quickly.
When the calendar is too short to finish this term, we line up the preceptor for the next one, so an extension term opens with a confirmed placement instead of another search.
If the remaining hours no longer fit
Hours cannot run past the course end date unless course faculty grant an extension. When a replacement cannot close the gap in time, Gonzaga's extension courses, NURS 683P for FNP and NURS 683M for PMHNP, let you finish practicum hours in a term without a specialty didactic course, and both can be repeated for credit.
That shifts your progression plan, which Gonzaga lets you slow within its five-year limit. Our pages on delayed graduation and falling behind on hours cover the planning in detail. Raise the question with course faculty early, while an extension or a second preceptor are both still possible.
Keeping your pace by seeing patients with an unapproved stand-in backfires: those hours may not count, and Gonzaga warns that breaking its hour rules can lead to dismissal.
Make the next placement sturdier
Some departures come without warning, but a few habits make a replacement placement hold. Confirm the schedule with the new preceptor about two weeks before you begin, as Gonzaga asks, and bring your CV or resume and written goals so expectations are settled from the first day.
Keep the arrangement easy to sustain. Washington's preceptor rule caps a preceptor at two students at one time, so ask whether your new preceptor already has students this term. Fit your hours to their availability, arrive prepared, and keep your faculty contacts on schedule. A preceptor who finds the process well organized is in a better position to finish the term with you. When we arrange the replacement, your placement advisor checks in during the term so small problems surface early.
Questions Gonzaga students ask
Do the hours I completed with my first preceptor still count?
Hours you completed with an approved preceptor, inside the semester, at a site with an active agreement, were earned under Gonzaga's rules. Keep your log current and ask the departing preceptor to complete whichever evaluation course faculty specify, since that evaluation documents your presence in the clinical setting.
Can another provider at the same clinic take over?
Yes, once approved. To Gonzaga, a colleague at the same site is a new preceptor, so faculty review and approve them before their hours count, and they use your second preceptor slot for the semester. The site's existing agreement may cover them; the Clinical Placement Team can confirm.
What if the whole site drops me, not just the preceptor?
Sites can end a rotation. Providence, for example, keeps the right to dismiss a student for cause. A new site needs its own faculty approval and an active affiliation agreement with Gonzaga, so start the replacement search the same day and tell course faculty how many hours remain.
Should I tell Gonzaga why my preceptor left?
Give course faculty a short, factual account: the date, the reason if you know it, and your hours to date. If the departure involved a concern about the clinical setting, say so plainly. Gonzaga's FNP preceptor guide asks preceptors to contact the department's clinical coordinator when there is a problem, so faculty may already know.
Can you find a replacement in a different state?
The replacement has to be in a state where you are licensed to practice, since Gonzaga places NP students at approved sites in their licensed state. If you hold a license in more than one of Gonzaga's ten states, tell us, and confirm with Gonzaga before the search widens.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Gonzaga's catalog, FAQs, preceptor packets and Department of Nursing pages. Your course, the Graduate Nursing Student Handbook and Gonzaga's Clinical Placement Team have the final word.
Gonzaga asks you to find local preceptors first. Let us run that search.
Tell us your Gonzaga program, your practicum course and where you live and can travel. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the license, certification and site details your Practicum Site Placement Request needs, early in the semester before.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care across the lifespan for
NURS 661PtoNURS 664P, psychiatric care forNURS 661MtoNURS 663M, an agency liaison for the DNP - Credentials, license, board certification and site contact ready for your site request
- In Spokane, across Washington or wherever in the ten western states you are licensed
Start your placement plan
Your program, city and next practicum term is all we need to begin.