Virtual clinical options for FNU students

In-person care carries the practicum

There is no fully virtual clinical route at FNU. Every MSN and PGC track requires at least 750 clinical hours, and FNU's catalog limits how much of that can be telehealth. The visit counts point the same way: births and labor management in midwifery and speculum and bimanual exams in the FNP track need a patient in the room, and most of the 300 gynecologic visits in WHNP must be in person, since no visit type can be more than 30% telehealth.

So an offer of an all-virtual preceptor doesn't fit FNU's rules for any MSN or PGC track. For us, the main route is an in-person preceptor near where you live, with telehealth added only where your course allows it and inside your track's cap.

FNU's telehealth limits by track

These limits come from FNU's catalog and apply across your program's hours, not to a single course.

The full rules, including how FNU treats observation, are on FNU telehealth hours.

What the caps mean in hours

On the 750-hour minimum, our arithmetic puts the midwifery and WHNP cap at 150 telehealth hours and the FNP cap at 75. That is a small slice of a practicum, and it has to be spread so that no single visit type goes over its own limit.

PMHNP is different. At 450 hours, telehealth could make up most of a 750-hour practicum, which makes psychiatric telehealth practices worth considering in a PMHNP search. Your accepted CSAF still needs a preceptor with psychiatric prescribing authority, and your visit mix still has to cover child and adolescent, geriatric, crisis, substance use and psychotherapy encounters. More on that track: the PMHNP preceptor guide.

Licensing follows the patient

For telehealth rotations, FNU requires you to meet Board of Nursing licensure requirements in the state where the patient resides. Your own location and your preceptor's office don't settle the question: the patient's state does.

That matters for practices that see patients across state lines. If a telehealth clinic serves patients in three states, you need to meet the licensing rules of each state whose patients you see. A multistate compact license can cover several compact states at once, but not every state belongs to the compact.

FNU's public pages don't say whether a student outside New York may count telehealth visits with New York patients. If a practice you're considering sees New York residents, ask your RCF before you rely on those hours. More on licenses: RN license for FNU clinicals.

How we use telehealth in a search

We start with in-person preceptors near you and only look at telehealth when it fits your course and your remaining cap. Before suggesting a telehealth rotation, we check which states the practice's patients live in against the RN licenses you hold, and how those hours would sit alongside the in-person hours and visit counts you still need.

FNU's published process has no separate lane for telehealth sites: a commitment from the preceptor, a CSAF, your RCF's acceptance and Clinical Credentialing all still apply, and being virtual shortens none of them. FNP students should remember that FNU expects them in the same office as their preceptor, so a remote setup from home won't qualify. The wider search process is on how it works.

Questions to settle with your RCF

Some telehealth details aren't spelled out in FNU's public sources, or depend on your course. Settle these with your RCF before you count on any virtual hours:

• Whether the clinical course you're entering allows telehealth hours, and how many you've already used.
• How telehealth encounters should be recorded in your Clinical Log.
• Whether observing during a telehealth visit counts. FNU says observed-only visits don't count toward required experiences, except PMHNP therapy visits.
• Whether patients from a particular state, New York included, can count toward your hours.
• How a telehealth rotation fits within your track's maximum number of sites.