NP preceptors in Jackson and West Tennessee, near the Lambuth campus
Jackson is home to UofM Lambuth, but the MSN runs online, so a West Tennessee graduate student's practicums take place in the clinics and hospitals of their own county. Across much of the region, rural distance and shortage-area designations shape the search. We look for preceptors from Jackson outward who fit your UofM track, and we prepare the approval details early.
Find a West Tennessee preceptor
Tell us your county, your track and how far you can drive.
What Lambuth means for graduate students
UofM Lambuth occupies a 57-acre campus in the heart of Jackson. LCON admitted its first nursing students there in 2012, and its nursing home since 2022 has been Sprague Hall, a building organized around simulation that even includes a mock home and a virtual reality lab.
The Traditional BSN runs on both campuses, and Lambuth BSN students are assigned their clinical placements; the Traditional BSN guide covers that path. The MSN works differently. Its courses are fully online, and its precepted hours happen in the student's own area, so a nurse in Dyer, Henry or Hardin County trains close to home rather than in Jackson itself.
Lambuth students still have the Lambuth Campus Library in the L. L. Gobbel building and online access to UofM's writing services, both handy for the didactic course UofM pairs with each practicum. Companion clinical and didactic courses are taken together and, if one is repeated, repeated together.
Where West Tennessee clinicians practice
These organizations are examples of where the region's clinicians work, drawn from their own public pages. They show the kinds of settings in the region, not sites that host UofM students.
- West Tennessee Healthcare. Its nursing careers page says it offers on-site education for students pursuing nursing careers; no NP student process is posted.
- Christ Community Health Services, a community health center with Jackson locations and a separate NP and PA student application tied to fixed deadlines.
- Baptist Memorial Health Care, which runs hospitals across West Tennessee and wants graduate nursing applications a full three months early, one named preceptor per form.
- Community health centers and rural health clinics in counties such as Hardeman and Lake, which hold facility shortage designations of their own.
Christ Community's application windows, set against UofM's terms, are laid out on the Memphis preceptors page.
Shortage-area designations across the region
HRSA's September 2026 files show access need well beyond Jackson. A designation marks a community where patients struggle to reach primary care or mental health care; it describes patient access, not the supply of preceptors.
| County | Primary care | Mental health |
|---|---|---|
| Madison (Jackson) | Low-income population designation | Low-income catchment area designation |
| Hardeman | Whole-county geographic designation dating to 1978, plus a health center and three rural health clinics | Health center, state mental hospital and low-income catchment designations |
| Lake | Low-income designation and a health center | Catchment area and health center designations |
| Haywood and Tipton | Low-income designations | Catchment area designations, Tipton's proposed for withdrawal |
| Fayette | Whole-county geographic designation | Catchment area designation proposed for withdrawal |
| Benton, Carroll, Chester, Crockett, Decatur, Dyer, Gibson, Hardin, Henderson, Henry, McNairy, Obion and Weakley | Low-income designations | Geographic or low-income catchment designations |
For PMHNP students, the mental health designations point to outpatient need across the region. For FNP students, rural family practices serve many of these communities, which is why we search county by county instead of stopping at the Jackson city limits.
Mileage, schedules and campus trips
LCON provides no shuttle and no travel reimbursement, so every mile to a practicum site is yours. In a region of long county roads, the real question is how many clinical days you can drive each week without losing work shifts, and we plan the search around your answer.
UofM's calendar rules add structure. Clinical faculty expect your schedule on the Monday of week two, want any change in writing seven days before it happens, and allow no clinical days over university breaks or holidays without a faculty arrangement. Each course's hours must stretch across seven weeks or more; see what counts as clinical hours.
Beyond local clinical days, the NP tracks bring you to campus for as many as three brief intensives, with at least half a year's notice for each, and attendance at the January 2027 one is mandatory across all NP tracks. The host campus goes unnamed on UofM's pages, so watch each notice and the campus intensives page; from West Tennessee, either campus is a regional trip rather than a cross-state one.
Track fit in a smaller market
Fewer practices per county means each candidate has to cover more of your track's needs, so we test the whole sequence early.
- For FNP, the sequence needs a family practice rotation and an NP preceptor somewhere along the way, and the
NURS 7649residency belongs in family practice or internal medicine. - AG-ACNP students need a preceptor whose practice includes inpatient care, so we focus that search on hospital-based practices.
- PMHNP students need both outpatient and inpatient psychiatric experience over the four practicum courses, and one rotation at least with an NP.
- Nursing Education students cannot reuse an earlier immersion site for the residency, a real constraint where practices are sparse.
Hours at your own employer are also ruled out except in compelling circumstances that faculty and program administration sign off on. In a county where one organization employs many of the nurses, that rule shapes the search from the start.
Why West Tennessee students choose us
We search from your home county outward, across county lines, and into Jackson or Memphis only when your track calls for it. Every candidate is checked against UofM's rotation rules, and once a preceptor agrees we write up their credentials and practice setting for the agreement form so the partnerships office gets a complete file.
We also check your Complio items and myClinicalExchange onboarding against the term dates, and we keep alternates in view, because a lost preceptor in a small market leaves fewer nearby options. Our search is built around UofM's rules whatever role the university plays in your placement. Tell us your county and the days you can travel in the form below, and read about backup preceptors for how replacements work.
Questions UofM students ask
Do UofM MSN students attend class at the Lambuth campus?
MSN coursework is fully online, so graduate students have no weekly classes in Jackson. NP students make as many as three campus visits of one to three days each over the program, and UofM's pages leave open which campus hosts them. Sprague Hall is LCON's nursing building at Lambuth.
Can a rural clinic count as my FNP family practice rotation?
It can, provided the practice is a family practice setting and both clinical faculty and the partnerships office approve the preceptor and site. The same clinic could later host the residency, which UofM requires in family practice or internal medicine, since NP students may return to an earlier site.
Who covers travel costs for clinicals in West Tennessee?
You do. LCON's bulletin makes transportation to clinical sites the student's responsibility and offers no shuttle or reimbursement. That is why we ask about your driving limit first and weigh a closer site against a better-matched one farther away before proposing anything.
Do Lambuth BSN students choose their own clinical sites?
No. UofM decides BSN clinical placements itself, weighing which sites have room, faculty resources, enrollment and how many students need a spot. Lambuth BSN clinicals can land anywhere from West Tennessee into North Mississippi, and UofM says BSN students cannot ask for their practicum assignments to be changed.
Does West Tennessee Healthcare publish an NP student process?
Not publicly. Its nursing careers page says only that it offers on-site education for students pursuing nursing careers, and no NP student steps, portal or lead time appear on its pages. Any practice within the system would need its student steps confirmed directly before a rotation is planned around it.
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
Your concentration, your town and your next clinical semester is all we need to begin.