Loyola University New Orleans Nurse Anesthesia: assigned sites, 2,940 hours and your DNP project
Loyola New Orleans assigns its Nurse Anesthesia students to program-affiliated clinical sites, so anesthesia rotations come to you. What you choose yourself is the site and preceptor for three DNP Scholarly Project practicums, which land in the heaviest clinical terms of the 36-month plan. This page covers both, along with the dual AGACNP/Nurse Anesthesia track.
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.
How anesthesia sites are assigned
Loyola's Nurse Anesthesia supplemental handbook, dated 2023, says students are assigned to clinical sites. Before a student is sent anywhere, the site must have a written clinical affiliation agreement that the School of Nursing has approved, and COA must have approved the site too. The admission pages call these program-affiliated clinical sites and note that an RN license in the states where they sit may be required.
Licensing starts before the first rotation. Applicants hold an RN license in a US state or territory and must be eligible for Louisiana licensure, with the Louisiana license in hand before any specialty track course. Admission also asks for BLS, ACLS and CCRN and one year of critical care RN work, and PALS is due before the clinical practicum and kept current until 90 days after graduation.
The program runs as a 36-month, full-time plan of continuous semesters, with cohorts of 24 shared with the dual track and outside work strongly discouraged. The 87-credit plan begins in Fall. Loyola's bulletin says interviews happen in the fall, while the program page says spring.
Anesthesia practicums and the hour conflict
Loyola's sources agree on 2,400 anesthesia hours plus 540 DNP project hours, 2,940 in all, with COA case-type and hour rules applying as well. They disagree on how the anesthesia hours split across the second and third practicums.
| Term | Course | Bulletin | 2026 plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fall II (term 4) | NURS G916 Anesthesia Practicum I | 200 | 200 |
| Spring II | NURS G922 Anesthesia Practicum II | 400 | 200 |
| Summer II | NURS G926 Anesthesia Practicum III | 400 | 600 |
| Fall III | NURS G931 Anesthesia Practicum IV | 600 | 600 |
| Spring III | NURS G932 Anesthesia Practicum V | 600 | 600 |
| Summer III | NURS G934 Anesthesia Practicum VI | 200 | 200 |
The total comes to 2,400 either way, but the split changes how heavy Spring II and Summer II feel, and Summer II is also when your first DNP project practicum begins. Credits differ too: NURS G916 is 1 credit in the bulletin and 3 in the plan. Check the plan of study for your cohort and ask the program which figures govern it.
Spring II and Summer II anesthesia hours read 400 and 400 in the bulletin but 200 and 600 in the 2026 plan; confirm your cohort's figures before you schedule anything else in Summer II.
What clinical weeks look like
The 2023 handbook caps clinical assignments at four clinical days or 40 assigned hours a week, with no single assignment over 16 hours. In-house call and night, weekend and holiday assignments are all possible.
Only CRNAs certified by the NBCRNA and anesthesiologists with staff privileges may teach you clinically. Anesthesia residents and fellows, like senior students, cannot fill that role, and one supervisor never covers more than two students at once. You log every case electronically within 7 days through the program's chosen vendor, and your preceptor signs the Verification of Clinical Experience form. Faculty visit anesthesia sites in person at least once a year.
Because these rules come from a handbook dated 2023, confirm the current version during course orientation. Malpractice coverage for practicum hours comes from the School of Nursing, though Loyola's documents describe the limits differently and the anesthesia handbook leaves open whether coverage comes through the University or AANA insurance; the liability insurance page sets out those differences.
The dual AGACNP/Nurse Anesthesia track
The dual BSN-DNP adds adult-gerontology acute care to anesthesia: 96 credits over 36 months full time, and 3,440 hours made up of 500 AGACNP, 2,400 anesthesia and 540 project hours. It is hybrid, with a campus visit once a semester for the AGACNP clinical skills portion, and it prepares you for both AGACNP and CRNA certification.
| Term | Course | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Summer I (term 3) | NURS G902 AGACNP Practicum I | 180 |
| Fall II | NURS G904 AGACNP Practicum II | 180 |
| Spring III | NURS G907 AGACNP Practicum III | 140 |
Loyola's pages leave open who arranges the AGACNP sites within the dual program, so ask the AGAC Program Director before Summer I. The dual plan repeats the bulletin-versus-plan anesthesia differences, and its column headers carry the years 2024, 2025 and 2026 under a 2026 title. The AGACNP practicums page explains how acute care shifts and Prism case logs work.
Your DNP Scholarly Project practicums
The three DNP Scholarly Project courses, NURS G939, NURS G942 and NURS G944, run in every Loyola DNP track at 180 hours apiece. In the anesthesia plan they sit in Summer II, Spring III and Summer III, beside Anesthesia Practicums III, V and VI. That is the squeeze: project hours overlap some of your fullest clinical terms.
Under Loyola's DNP practicum requirements letter, the project site is your pick, judged against the course outcomes and the DNP Essentials; a department of health, an ethics committee, a professional nursing association or a healthcare organization can all qualify. For a preceptor, think of a director, a chief officer, a nurse administrator, an APRN or a physician, with relatives, employers and direct supervisors excluded. Three signatures, yours, the preceptor's and a Loyola faculty member's, go on the project's preceptor-student agreement, and your preceptor checks in with your scholarly project advisor every semester.
The letter also advises starting early and lining up more than one preceptor option. The DNP project practicums page has the full rules.
Why anesthesia students choose us for the project
Your anesthesia rotations come from the program. The project site is yours to find, and it has to be found while you carry up to 40 clinical hours a week. That search is the part we handle.
We look for an organization where your project topic fits and a leader who meets Loyola's DNP rules and can stay with you from Summer II to Summer III. We find out early whether Loyola already has an affiliation agreement with the organization, collect the preceptor's CV and license, and prepare the signed project agreement for your Exxat Wishlist, with a backup option held in reserve. If you are in the dual track and the program asks you to bring an acute care preceptor, we run that search too, matched to the AGACNP course in front of you.
Every project site is approved by Loyola's faculty and placement office, and the file we build for them is complete and written to the DNP letter's rules. Start with the form below, or read how it works first.
Questions Loyola students ask
Do Loyola Nurse Anesthesia students find their own clinical sites?
No. Loyola's Nurse Anesthesia handbook says students are assigned to clinical sites, each with a School of Nursing-approved affiliation agreement and COA approval in place first. What you do choose is the organization and preceptor for your three DNP Scholarly Project practicums.
How many clinical hours is Loyola's Nurse Anesthesia program?
It totals 2,940: 2,400 anesthesia hours over six practicums plus 540 DNP project hours. The dual AGACNP/Nurse Anesthesia track adds 500 AGACNP hours for 3,440. COA case-type rules apply on top of the hour totals, and the per-course split differs between the bulletin and the 2026 plan.
Is Loyola's Nurse Anesthesia program accredited?
Yes. The Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA) accredits the program, and Loyola lists Fall 2028 as the date of its next COA review. SACSCOC accredits the university as a whole. Our accreditation page sorts out which body looks at what.
Can I work during Loyola's Nurse Anesthesia program?
Loyola strongly discourages outside work. The program runs 36 months full time with continuous semesters, and the 2023 handbook permits clinical assignments of up to 40 hours, or four clinical days, in a week, including possible in-house call, nights, weekends and holidays.
When does the first anesthesia practicum start at Loyola?
In the posted 36-month plan, NURS G916 Anesthesia Practicum I begins in Fall II, the fourth term. Dual-track students start earlier with NURS G902 AGACNP Practicum I in Summer I. PALS must be current before the clinical practicum begins, and the Louisiana RN license must be in place before any specialty track course.
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.