Loyola New Orleans BSN-DNP AGACNP: acute care practicums from term 3
Loyola University New Orleans' BSN-DNP Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner is a hybrid, 48-credit program for experienced critical care nurses. It carries 1,290 practicum hours: three acute care practicums of at least 250 hours each, then three DNP Scholarly Project practicums of 180. The first acute care practicum comes in term 3, earlier than in any of Loyola's FNP tracks, so placement planning starts almost as soon as you enroll.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Loyola program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Loyola course.
Program shape and who gets in
Core DNP courses are online. The AGACNP specialty begins in the third semester and adds a campus visit each semester for hands-on clinical skills work in New Orleans. You can enter in Fall, Spring or Summer, and the posted plan spans eight terms from Fall I to Spring III.
Admission is built around critical care. Applicants bring at least a year of recent, full-time RN work in critical care, hold BLS, ACLS and CCRN, and submit two recommendation letters written by critical care leaders, then interview in person or over Zoom. The curriculum carries AACN verification for the ACNPC-AG exam.
The School of Nursing also runs a dual BSN-DNP in AGACNP and Nurse Anesthesia, in which anesthesia students are assigned to program-affiliated sites. Its hours and structure are on the Nurse Anesthesia page; this page covers the stand-alone AGACNP.
Six practicums, 1,290 hours
From Summer I to Spring III, every term carries one practicum, six in a row. The acute care courses come first and finish in Spring II; the project courses fill the last three terms. The bulletin totals 750 clinical and 540 project hours.
| Term | Course | Minimum hours |
|---|---|---|
| Summer I (term 3) | NURS G902 Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Practicum I | 250 |
| Fall II | NURS G904 Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Practicum II | 250 |
| Spring II | NURS G907 Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Practicum III | 250 |
| Summer II | NURS G939 DNP Scholarly Project I | 180 |
| Fall III | NURS G942 DNP Scholarly Project II | 180 |
| Spring III | NURS G944 DNP Scholarly Project III | 180 |
The handoff between the two halves is tight. NURS G939 opens in Summer II, so its project site should be requested by mid-February, while you are deep in NURS G907 shifts. The project search is also a different kind of search: Loyola's DNP letter asks for a setting that fits the DNP Essentials and a project preceptor who is not your employer, your direct supervisor or a relative, so your own nurse manager cannot fill that role.
The AGACNP practicums page walks through shifts, case logs and evaluations course by course, and the DNP project practicums page covers the project side, including the separate preceptor-student agreement.
Who arranges your acute care site
For the BSN-DNP itself, Loyola's program materials do not spell out who secures the practicum site. What Loyola does publish points toward the student: the bulletin's AGACNP certificate entry places practicums with preceptors where the student lives, and the AGACNP Practicum Guide has students obtain their preceptor's schedule and arrange their own shifts. Early in your first term, raise the sourcing question for NURS G902 with the AGAC Program Director, then with the Clinical Practicum Coordinator.
The Exxat steps are the same either way: compliance items approved, the site checked for an affiliation agreement, the Wishlist submitted with the preceptor's details, the Preceptor Agreement uploaded, and the whole request at Placement Approved before any shift counts. Summer sessions open in mid-May (May 17 in 2027), so the three-month lead time puts your first request in motion by mid-February, during Spring I.
Your first acute care practicum is in Summer I, so the three-month clock starts in Spring I, only your second term.
How acute care shifts work
Acute care practicums run on your preceptor's schedule. The AGACNP Practicum Guide lets you build hours from 4-, 6-, 8- or 12-hour shifts, weekends and holidays included, which suits nurses already used to rotating rosters. At the hospital where you work, the Employed at Clinical Site Attestation requires a different department and hours separate from your job; see working where you work.
Each shift is logged in Exxat Prism, with time and cases, before you leave the site. Prism also sends your preceptor two evaluations, one at midterm and one two weeks from the end; if midterm finds you short of half your hours, you owe your faculty an action plan.
Invasive procedures are done only with your preceptor of record, whose Preceptor Agreement must be on file in Prism, though you may also work alongside interventional radiology, radiology and ultrasound providers. Each AGACNP site gets a faculty visit once a year, held on Zoom when the site lies beyond a 90-minute drive from New Orleans.
Preceptor rules in Louisiana hospitals
Louisiana hospitals add the state board's layer. Under LSBN's preceptor rule, an acute care student's hours should mostly be supervised by an APRN whose license and certification share that population focus, while other clinicians contribute interprofessional time. Any Louisiana preceptor must also hold a Louisiana RN or APRN license that is active and unencumbered, and the rule limits a preceptor to two graduate APRN students at a time in one clinical experience. Read the Louisiana APRN rules page for the rest.
Loyola's own preceptor criteria appear in its FNP guide (licensure where the site sits with no encumbrance, board certification, over a year in practice, not a relative), and the preceptor requirements page sets them out one by one. Confirm with the AGAC Program Director how they apply to acute care.
Large systems bring their own gates. Ochsner LSU Health in North Louisiana takes graduate requests only through InPlace, entered by the school's coordinator, and asks students not to call providers; CHRISTUS wants its Clinical Education Affiliation Agreement signed before a student's term begins. Build those reviews into your timeline and keep a second hospital in view.
Why AGACNP students choose us
Acute care preceptors are hospital-based and heavily scheduled, and many work inside systems with their own student rules, so landing one for 250 hours takes persistence. We search hospitalist, intensivist and acute care NP services near you, confirm the preceptor can supervise under Loyola's rules and the state's, and find out early whether the hospital already holds a Loyola affiliation agreement or runs its own student process.
Because your practicums run back to back from Summer I to Spring II, we plan all three together and keep the next site moving while you log the current one. Every request we prepare has its Wishlist fields complete and its uploads attached (preceptor CV, Nursys license verification, signed Preceptor Agreement), so the Clinical Practicum Coordinator and faculty can go straight to their review. If a preceptor drops, we are already working on the replacement. Send your details with the form below.
Questions Loyola students ask
When does the first practicum start in Loyola's BSN-DNP AGACNP?
In the posted plan, NURS G902 Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Practicum I falls in Summer I, term 3, with a minimum of 250 hours. Count back three months from a mid-May summer opening and you land in mid-February of your second term, which is when Loyola's lead time says the request should already be under way.
Do I have to come to campus for the BSN-DNP AGACNP?
Yes, for intensives. According to the bulletin, the specialty brings you to campus every semester for skills training in person, starting when AGACNP courses begin in semester three; the core DNP courses stay online. Give your preceptor those campus dates when you set your practicum shifts, so a scheduled shift never collides with an intensive.
Can I do AGACNP practicum hours at the hospital where I work?
Often, yes. The Employed at Clinical Site Attestation lets you train at your employer when the practicum runs on a different unit or service from your job and on hours you are not paid for; you, your manager and your preceptor all sign it. For an ICU nurse, that usually means another service line. Before the Wishlist goes in, check the plan with your course faculty.
What certifications do I need for the AGACNP practicums?
BLS, ACLS and CCRN are admission requirements for the BSN-DNP AGACNP, together with a year of recent full-time critical care experience. Your Exxat compliance file adds the School of Nursing items: background check, drug screen, physical, health insurance, immunizations and TB screening. A gap there brings a compliance hold, and the practicum course cannot be registered until it clears.
How many hours is each AGACNP practicum?
In the BSN-DNP plan, NURS G902, NURS G904 and NURS G907 each require at least 250 hours, for 750 clinical hours. The post-graduate certificate uses the same courses with a smaller split of 180, 180 and 140, for 500 hours. The three DNP project practicums add 180 hours apiece, bringing the BSN-DNP total to 1,290.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Loyola's own bulletin, program pages, practicum guides, forms and licensure disclosures. Your plan of study, your practicum guide, your program director and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
Loyola asks you to select your own preceptor and site. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your Loyola program, where you live and which term your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check whether the site already has a Loyola affiliation agreement, and prepare everything your Exxat Wishlist needs.
- Preceptors matched to the course: outpatient primary care for
NURS G823, pediatrics and obstetrics forNURS G829, acute care forNURS G902, psychiatric care forNURS G856 - Preceptor CV, license and Nursys PDF, the Preceptor Agreement and the site's signer details ready for the Wishlist
- In your own community, in Louisiana or any state where Loyola approves your practicum
Start your placement plan
Program, city and term is all we need to begin.