N 565: 135 hours with adults and older adults
N 565 Advanced Practice Psych Nursing III Preceptorship Experience is one of just two PMHNP preceptorships whose hours Post has printed: 135, in the 2021-22 course description. The same description sends you to adults and older adults in primary care and acute mental health care settings. Hospital-based sites can add onboarding steps of their own, so this is the term to plan earliest.
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What Post's description of N 565 says
Post's 2021-22 catalog, the newest whose course descriptions could be read, assigns N 565 135 precepted clinical hours. It describes the patients as adults and older adults and the settings as primary care and acute mental health care. Its prerequisite is N 564 Advanced Practice Psych Nursing III, which you complete in the term just before.
Those details could have moved since. Later catalogs could not be checked: the 2025-26 descriptions were unreadable and the newest catalog's nursing pages were closed to review, so compare the syllabus and the current catalog, and raise any difference with the Clinical Coordinator.
N 565 is the third of the five PMHNP preceptorships. By this point you have been through approval twice, with N 561 and N 563. The new variable is the setting, because the description names two very different kinds.
Primary care or acute care: choosing the setting
The two settings suit different students and create different paperwork. The table sets them side by side; the Clinical Coordinator approves the specific site either way.
| Primary care setting | Acute mental health setting | |
|---|---|---|
| What it can look like | A psychiatric NP or psychiatrist working inside a primary care practice, seeing referred adults and older adults | Inpatient psychiatric unit, psychiatric emergency or crisis service, partial hospitalization |
| Typical hours | Clinic days on weekdays | Shifts, possibly long ones, possibly weekends |
| Paperwork | Often one practice owner who can sign | Hospital systems may run their own student onboarding with fixed lead times |
| Good fit if you want | Outpatient medication management alongside primary care teams | Severe illness, admissions and crisis stabilization |
Whichever you choose, Post's PMHNP rule still applies: clinical hours belong in mental and behavioral health settings. A primary care office only works when a psychiatric preceptor there is seeing psychiatric patients, not general medical visits. The PMHNP clinical sites page compares site types across the whole track.
Older adults belong in the caseload
N 565 is the only PMHNP preceptorship whose description names older adults. A preceptor whose patients are nearly all young adults may technically fit an adult course and still give you little of what this one describes. Ask a candidate what share of the caseload is older, and whether their work includes late-life depression, behavioral symptoms of dementia or medication reviews for people on many prescriptions.
Places with many older patients include geriatric psychiatry clinics, psychiatric consultation services that visit long-term care facilities, and inpatient units that admit older adults. Every one of them still needs Post's affiliation agreement and the Coordinator's approval, and a facility that has an agreement with Post is not thereby committed to approving your placement.
Hospital units add their own clock
Choose an acute setting and Post's steps become only part of the timeline. The affiliation agreement request starts in Post's tracker, and Academic Affairs staff contact the facility within seven business days. The hospital may then run its own learner process on top.
Connecticut shows how that looks. Trinity Health Of New England's published learner onboarding for Saint Francis Hospital and Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Hospital requires an active affiliation agreement with the school before a learner goes any further, then wants a health certification form at least four weeks before the start date. UConn Health tells schools to arrange a clinical affiliation agreement directly with the host department whenever a student earns academic credit. Neither system publishes an NP-specific path; more on Connecticut NP preceptors.
Work backward from Week 1 of N 565: Post's check, the facility's four weeks of forms, its onboarding and the agreement before that. Naming an acute site before N 564 begins keeps every step comfortable.
Seventeen hours a week for eight weeks
135 hours across one 8-week term comes to about 17 precepted hours a week (our computation). At a clinic, think a pair of long days or three short ones. On a unit with long shifts you may reach it in fewer days, but a single cancelled shift puts you well behind.
Compare the preceptor's pattern with your own RN job before you commit. A night-shift nurse paired with a weekday clinic preceptor may need different shifts for eight weeks, and a hospital preceptor on a rotating schedule needs dates fixed on paper early, because the NP Clinical Schedule is one of the items Post checks at the end of Week 1.
Put real dates on the NP Clinical Schedule before Week 1, leave slack for the preceptor's days off, and log hours as you go. If hours slip, extensions that involve clinical time go through the Clinical Coordinator; behind on clinical hours walks through the options.
Why Post students bring us N 565
The adult term makes the most demands on a search: the right age mix, the right setting and, at hospitals, a second onboarding process with its own dates. We find psychiatric NPs and psychiatrists who see adults and older adults in integrated primary care or acute psychiatric settings near you, confirm their license and certification, and have the preceptor agreement letter, license report, certification and CV in hand early.
For hospital units we open the affiliation agreement request well ahead and track the facility's onboarding dates against Post's Week 1, so nothing arrives late. Through the term we stay on call in case the preceptor's schedule changes, and we line up a replacement quickly if one is needed. Start with the contact form and tell us which term N 564 falls in.
Questions Post students ask
How many clinical hours is N 565 at Post?
135 precepted hours, according to the 2021-22 course description, the newest one that could be read. It is one of only two PMHNP preceptorships with a printed figure; the other is N 567 at 90. The current description could not be checked, so confirm the requirement in your syllabus before setting dates with a preceptor.
Can I complete N 565 on an inpatient psychiatric unit?
The course description names acute mental health care settings, and an inpatient psychiatric unit falls within that. The Clinical Coordinator still approves the site and preceptor. Expect the hospital to require an executed affiliation agreement and possibly its own onboarding before your first shift, so start several weeks earlier than you would for a clinic.
Does a primary care office count as a PMHNP site for N 565?
It can, because the 2021-22 description names primary care settings. The office needs a qualified psychiatric preceptor there, such as a psychiatric NP or psychiatrist handling behavioral health referrals, since Post's PMHNP rule points to mental and behavioral health care. A family practice without a psychiatric clinician is unlikely to be approved.
Can I split N 565 hours between two sites?
Post's public sources do not address splitting one course across sites, so ask the Clinical Coordinator first. If it is allowed, each site needs its own fully executed affiliation agreement and each preceptor needs the full set of documents, including a signed preceptor agreement letter, which roughly doubles the paperwork for the term.
What comes right before N 565?
N 564 Advanced Practice Psych Nursing III, the didactic course its 2021-22 description lists as the prerequisite. NP students take one course per 8-week term, so N 564 is also your last full term to finish the N 565 file. For a hospital site, aim to have the preceptor confirmed before N 564 starts.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Post University's own catalog, program pages and published nursing documents. Your course faculty and the Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
Post asks you to select your own preceptor. We make the search the easy part.
Tell us your Post track, your city and your next preceptorship course. We line up preceptors who fit the course, collect the license report, certification and CV the Clinical Coordinator reviews, and start the affiliation agreement early so your Week 1 packet is complete before the term opens.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP and AGPCNP, mental and behavioral health for PMHNP, doctoral nurse leaders for DNP hours
- Preceptor agreement letter, license report, certification and CV ready for Post's approval
- Every preceptorship planned together, close to home in a state where you hold your license and Post's disclosure says yes
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