The 1,080 clinical hours in TTUHSC's BSN to DNP

Where the 1,080 comes from

The FNP program page puts it plainly: "You will have a minimum of 1,080 hours in the clinical setting." The PMHNP page advertises "1,080+ clinical hours," and the catalog's PMHNP plan prints hours beside each clinical course that add up to exactly that figure. In both tracks, 1,080 is a floor rather than a target.

The catalog also measures BSN to DNP clinical time differently from the MSN: "one-to-four basis for direct care and 1:6 basis for non-direct care." A credit of non-direct work therefore asks for more clock time than a credit of hands-on patient care. TTUHSC's public pages do not say which activities in which courses fall on each side, so the syllabus for each course and its faculty settle the split.

TTUHSC's first BSN to DNP cohort, with both tracks, started in 2018, and the program now runs as a summer-start, twelve-semester plan in both specialties.

FNP: named courses, hours not published

The FNP track's catalog plan names six clinical courses and prints hours for none of them. The primary care run starts in semester VII with NURS 6439 Primary Health Care I, continues in the fall with NURS 6541 Primary Care II and closes in semester IX with NURS 7660, the FNP Practicum. The three DNP Advanced Practicums, NURS 7450, NURS 7451 and NURS 7452, then fill semesters X through XII, the same course numbers the PMHNP track uses.

ACLS must be current for NURS 6541 and NURS 7660. The FNP web plan and catalog plan also differ: the web version adds several courses and shows the FNP Practicum as a one-credit course next to a rural health and telehealth course, while the catalog lists fewer courses under the same semester totals. The catalog is TTUHSC's official plan, and the BSN to DNP FNP guide walks through the differences.

Finding preceptors for 1,080 hours

TTUHSC's BSN to DNP pages answer the preceptor question directly: the search is yours, backed by faculty and a preceptor team who help with choosing and contracting. Every preceptor and site still goes through SON approval, and each preceptor needs a new electronic preceptor agreement each semester, so a six-course sequence can mean six or more agreements across the last two years or more of the program.

The populations change as you move through the plan. PMHNP students need a child and adolescent psychiatric setting, then adult psychiatric care, then complex patients across the lifespan. FNP students move from primary care into a family practicum before the advanced practicums. One preceptor seldom covers all of it.

The PMHNP page describes clinicals as done locally with approved preceptors, so the search centers on wherever you live in Texas or an accepted state. TTUHSC's licensure disclosure adds South Dakota to the states the BSN to DNP cannot take students from; check the licensure disclosure before planning a rotation outside Texas.