NP preceptors in Knoxville, Chattanooga and East Tennessee
Knoxville and Chattanooga sit at the far end of Tennessee from both UofM campuses, and the online MSN still lets students there earn their precepted hours at home. East Tennessee's large systems route outside students in very different ways, and Chattanooga's metro reaches into Georgia. We find East Tennessee preceptors who fit your UofM track and have the approval details ready early.
Find an East Tennessee preceptor
Tell us your city, your track and your first practicum term.
UofM from the eastern end of the state
For a nurse in Knox, Blount, Hamilton or Bradley County, UofM's online MSN means coursework from home and precepted practicums in East Tennessee. Travel to campus is limited to the NP intensives, at most three across the program.
Two practical differences come with the distance. East Tennessee keeps Eastern time while Memphis and Jackson keep Central, so read the times in course notices and intensive schedules with care. And since both campuses sit in West Tennessee, every intensive means a trip across the state, with travel days to build into your clinical schedule.
On the Tennessee side the license picture is simple: an unrestricted Tennessee RN license, or a compact multistate license, satisfies UofM for an East Tennessee site. Our search is designed around UofM's rules, however your practicum ends up being arranged.
How East Tennessee systems route outside students
These systems are examples of where East Tennessee clinicians practice. Their published routes apply to students in general and say nothing about UofM.
- Covenant Health, in the Knoxville area, handles students from its partner schools through the Tennessee Clinical Placement System, while students from other schools request facility access through the Covenant Student Portal.
- Erlanger, in Chattanooga, has paused new affiliation agreements covering advanced practice provider students, and it handles graduate placements through myClinicalExchange.
UofM's faculty handbook describes the Tennessee Clinical Placement System as a way to give students uniform orientation for hospital facilities across the state, and UofM itself names HealthStream myClinicalExchange for clinical site onboarding. Knowing which system a site uses tells us what your onboarding will involve before the term starts; the myClinicalExchange guide covers UofM's side of it.
What Erlanger's pause means for acute care students
Erlanger's position matters most to AG-ACNP students around Chattanooga. UofM's first AG-ACNP practicum, NURS 7622, pairs you with a preceptor who cares for inpatients, with time together in clinic, hospital or critical care settings, and at least one rotation in the track must be with an NP. The AG-ACNP practicums guide sets out the sequence.
With a major Chattanooga system adding no new agreements for advanced practice students, the search turns to other hospitals and hospital-based practices within reach, including Knoxville for students willing to drive. Because the pause concerns new agreements, the status of any existing one is a question to put to LCON before contacting an Erlanger clinician.
PMHNP students face a similar check for their inpatient psychiatric hours. FNP students usually have more room, since family practice and internal medicine settings satisfy both their rotation rule and their residency rule.
Chattanooga's Georgia side
The Chattanooga metro spills into north Georgia, so the practice closest to a Chattanooga home can sit in another state. The partnerships office counts Georgia among the states open to LCON.
Georgia handles this differently from Mississippi. Its nursing board does not oversee post-licensure education, graduate APRN programs included, so a UofM student's Georgia rotation needs no board sign-off. What Georgia watches is the license: its residents enrolled in programs elsewhere must train on a Georgia license or a compact multistate one, and a Tennessee multistate license carries into Georgia through the compact. Georgia also wants the nurse guiding APRN clinical learning in the state to hold Georgia APRN authorization.
Your Georgia preceptor would also practice under Georgia's physician delegation or supervision model. The Georgia guide covers the state in more depth.
Timing a practicum from the far end of the state
Every UofM NP track begins its precepted practicums in a spring term, about 12 months into the program for a Spring start or about 17 for a Fall start. From East Tennessee, work back from that term: time to find and confirm a preceptor, time for the site's own onboarding, and the partnerships office's green light on the agreement form ahead of the first clinical day.
Then the schedule rules take over. Clinical faculty need your schedule by Monday of the second week, changes go to them in writing a week ahead, and no course's hours can be finished in under seven weeks. The January 2027 intensive, required for every NP track, lands in that same opening stretch of spring. A practicum that starts late, or loses days to travel, has less room than it seems; behind on clinical hours covers the options.
Why East Tennessee students choose us
We search outward from your home across East Tennessee, and into north Georgia when that is closer, checking each site's route (student portal, statewide placement system, myClinicalExchange or school agreement) before approaching its clinicians. For students who live between Knoxville and Chattanooga, we compare both metros before settling on a site.
With a preceptor on board, we turn their credentials and practice setting into the facts the agreement form needs, gather the site information and line up your Complio and onboarding items so nothing expires before your last clinical day. We plan your schedule around intensive travel and stay on call through the term. To see what separates a thorough service from the rest, read choosing a placement service; the form below begins an East Tennessee search.
Questions UofM students ask
How often do East Tennessee students travel to UofM's campus?
Expect at most three campus trips over the program, each lasting one to three days and each posted six months or more before it happens; every NP student must attend the January 2027 one. UofM's pages do not name the host campus, Memphis or Lambuth, so budget for a cross-state trip either way.
Can a Chattanooga student train at a clinic in north Georgia?
It is possible. Georgia appears on LCON's authorized list, and Georgia's board keeps out of post-licensure program approval, so nothing has to be filed with it. You still need a license that reaches Georgia practice, and the nurse teaching you there needs APRN authorization from Georgia.
What is the Tennessee Clinical Placement System?
UofM's faculty handbook describes it as the statewide system for uniform, consistent clinical orientation to hospital facilities in Tennessee. Covenant Health, for one, uses it for students from partner schools. UofM names HealthStream myClinicalExchange for its own clinical site onboarding, so a given site may involve one system, the other or both.
Can East Tennessee students log clinical hours during fall break?
Not unless program faculty and administration arrange it. University breaks and holidays are off-limits for clinical days, which in 2026-27 include Fall Break in October, Thanksgiving week and Spring Break in March. Plan preceptor days around those gaps so each course still spreads its hours over at least seven weeks.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against UofM's 2026-27 catalog, the LCON Academic Bulletin, program pages and licensure disclosures. Your clinical faculty and your plan of study have the final word.
Whether UofM helps or you start alone, we find the preceptor.
Tell us your UofM concentration, your next practicum and the town you train near. We find preceptors and sites that fit the course and prepare what the preceptor agreement form needs, early enough for approval before the first clinical day.
- Preceptors matched to the rotation rules: an NP preceptor, family practice for FNP, inpatient and critical care for AG-ACNP
- License, certification and site details ready for the preceptor agreement form, with your Complio items in order
- Across the Mid-South, Tennessee and the states UofM serves
Start your placement plan
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