NP preceptors in DeSoto County and north Mississippi for UofM students
Southaven, Olive Branch, Horn Lake and Hernando sit inside the Memphis metro, yet a clinic there is in Mississippi, with that state's oversight layered on top of UofM's rules. We help UofM students on the Mississippi side weigh a local site against one across the line in Shelby County, then find a preceptor who fits both the track and the timeline.
Find a north Mississippi preceptor
Tell us your town, your track and the term your practicum starts.
A metro that crosses the state line
Census estimates put the Memphis metro at 1,341,412 people in 2025, with 277,618 of them in Mississippi. For a nurse who lives in DeSoto County and commutes into Memphis, the practice nearest home and the practice nearest work may sit in different states.
UofM's MSN is built around practicums close to the student's home. On the state question, UofM's own sources agree for Mississippi: the Office of Community Partnerships and Practice lists it among the states where LCON is authorized to offer its programs, and the NP licensure disclosures mark it Yes. That agreement is not true of every state, as the state authorization guide explains.
The BSN offers a useful contrast. UofM assigns BSN students their clinical placements, and those may fall at healthcare locations anywhere across West Tennessee and North Mississippi.
Mississippi's review of out-of-state programs
Mississippi gives oversight of nursing programs to its higher education governing board, IHL, rather than to the Board of Nursing. Under IHL's approach, a program from another state that sends students into Mississippi clinics is held to Mississippi's standards, and a practicum there is treated as the program being physically present in the state. Physical presence brings the program under review by IHL's nursing education office.
IHL estimates the review at up to three months. Its procedures manual goes further for programs headquartered in other states: file the request a full four months before clinicals begin. Separately, the school must belong to SARA or hold a non-SARA authorization for distance learning; UofM reaches students beyond Tennessee through NC-SARA.
The review runs between the school and IHL, which makes it a question for LCON rather than for you. Before we commit to a DeSoto County site, we ask you to confirm with your clinical faculty or the Office of Community Partnerships and Practice that a Mississippi practicum is open for your term.
For a practicum that starts in mid-January, a four-month lead time points back to mid-September of the year before.
License and practice rules on the Mississippi side
UofM already asks for an unrestricted RN license in Tennessee or in the approved state where your clinicals happen, and IHL sets the same expectation for graduate clinical students: the license must cover the state where the practicum sits. Both states belong to the compact, and Mississippi's board says a nurse whose home state is a member may practice in any other member state while in good standing. The RN license guide covers UofM's side.
Your preceptor's rules differ too. AANP rates Mississippi a reduced practice state, where an NP practices under a board-approved collaboration with a Mississippi physician or dentist. Tennessee instead requires physician supervision, described in Tennessee NP practice. The clinical skills you build are the same; the paperwork behind your preceptor's practice is not.
Where north Mississippi clinicians practice
These are examples of where clinicians in this corner of the state work, taken from public pages. Their presence on this list says nothing about hosting UofM students.
- Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, part of Baptist Memorial Health Care. No separate DeSoto student page was found; Baptist's system-wide graduate preceptorship application asks for three months' notice and names one preceptor per form.
- Methodist Olive Branch, part of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, whose student information page was unavailable when checked.
- Northeast Mississippi Health Care, a community health center holding a primary care shortage designation.
- North Mississippi Health Services, another Mississippi system, based farther from the metro.
With Baptist's application the only published route in this list, a DeSoto hospital search starts by lining up the preceptor, since the form cannot go in without one.
DeSoto County and its rural neighbors
Shortage-area data splits this part of Mississippi in two. HRSA's September 2026 files show no active designation for DeSoto County, while Marshall, Tate and Tunica counties each carry a low-income primary care designation, and two mental health catchment designations reach the area, one of them covering Tunica.
For a UofM student, that split suggests two approaches. A DeSoto practice keeps the drive short. A clinic in Marshall, Tate or Tunica County serves patients with fewer local options, which gives an FNP or PMHNP student direct experience with rural access need. Mississippi's review applies to either one.
A Shelby County site is often closer than it looks on a map. If Mississippi's lead time does not fit your term, we search the Tennessee side of the line as well, where UofM's rules and the site's own steps are all that apply; the Memphis preceptors page covers that market.
Why DeSoto County students choose us
We settle the state question first, then the search. That means confirming with you that LCON has cleared Mississippi for your term, counting back from your start date against IHL's lead time, and weighing each Mississippi candidate against a Memphis alternative within your drive. Weighing two states at once is normal here, so we keep both searches moving until one site is approved.
Once a preceptor commits, we collect their license, certification and practice information for the agreement form, collect the site information, and confirm that your Complio records and myClinicalExchange onboarding stay current through the last clinical day. However UofM handles your placement, our work follows its rules. The Mississippi guide covers the state layer in more depth, and the form below starts your search.
Questions UofM students ask
Is a clinic in Southaven out of state for UofM?
Yes. Southaven is in DeSoto County, Mississippi, so a practicum there falls under Mississippi's oversight as well as UofM's rules, even though the city sits inside the Memphis metro. Mississippi's IHL reviews programs from other states before their practicums begin there, which adds lead time to any plan.
Does a DeSoto County practicum call for a Mississippi RN license?
Not always. What Mississippi wants is an unencumbered RN license that is valid for practice in the state. As a compact member it accepts a multistate license from another compact home state, Tennessee included. A license issued as single-state by a non-compact state would not stretch to Mississippi, so check yours before settling on a site.
Is Mississippi on UofM's list of authorized states?
Yes. The Office of Community Partnerships and Practice names Mississippi among the states where LCON is authorized to offer its programs, and UofM's licensure disclosures for the NP tracks answer Yes for Mississippi too. For many other states those two UofM sources disagree, so the match here is worth noting.
Where do UofM BSN students do clinicals in north Mississippi?
UofM assigns BSN clinical placements itself, and its bulletin says those clinicals may take place at healthcare locations across West Tennessee and North Mississippi. Assignments can include days, evenings or weekends, and BSN students cannot request changes to them. Specific Mississippi sites are not listed publicly.
What if Mississippi's review will not be ready for my term?
Look to the Tennessee side. Shelby County practices are a short drive from much of DeSoto County, and a Tennessee site brings only UofM's rules and the site's own steps. We can run both searches at once so a Memphis option is ready if the Mississippi timeline slips.
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.