Leadership Through Precepting
The importance of preceptors has never been more evident. The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought greater awareness of our nation’s shortage of healthcare providers. FNU students are primed and ready to help fill these gaps, but they must have clinical hours to complete their course requirements and gain the real-world experience they need to excel. In the following pages, we take a look at the many different angles of precepting, including the specialties most in need of preceptors, the changes in precepting brought on by the pandemic, and the keys for students to find the right sites and preceptors. We also thank our devoted preceptors who continue to share their time and expertise year after year.
Telehealth Offers Solutions to Precepting During the Pandemic “In those cases, we had to suspend the preceptor relationship because the student was no longer allowed in the clinic. We have had students who,
“Because of the jumpstart provided by COVID, telehealth is going to be significantly more prevalent in the future.” Jeff Anderson Jeff Anderson, DNP, MS, PMHNP-BC, began his role as Regional Clinical Faculty (RCF) in the PMHNP program at FNU in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 Pandemic became widespread throughout the United States. Just like the other RCFs and students, Anderson had to adjust quickly to a new way of work. As clinics began to shut down or reduce on-site personnel due to the pandemic, many students were faced with the prospect of losing their clinical sites. “There have been several instances where either the preceptor or the clinic stopped taking students as the COVID numbers went up,” said Anderson, who resides in Idaho and works with students primarily in the northwestern part of the country.
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because a clinical site shut down, had to go on academic hiatus.” Anderson himself faced hurdles connecting with preceptors. Instead of meeting with preceptors face to face, as is the norm, the meetings have largely been held via video. “In the time I’ve been with Frontier, I’ve only traveled once to meet with a preceptor face to face,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of the way business is done now.” Not only has video conferencing enabled Anderson to meet with preceptors, but it has also enabled many of his psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) students to continue to progress at their clinical sites. Anderson said that most of the roughly 30 students he has had over the past few terms have
transitioned to at least some level of telehealth with their preceptors. “For the students who have found a good situation with a preceptor, it has really been convenient for them to do telehealth from their own home,” he said. “We have had students do clinicals in which they stay at home and they log in to a Zoom type meeting with the patient and the preceptor. We have also have the situation where the preceptor is still going to their office and the student meets them in their office, so the student and preceptor are both in the office but the patient joins via telehealth.” Though there are some drawbacks such as not being able to see a patient’s body language, Anderson said that telehealth provides a viable option, particularly for PMHNP students. “Mental health is unique compared to the other specialties at Frontier because mental health treatment really lends itself to telehealth,” he said. “I don’t see a big drop in the quality with telehealth versus face to face. In my own practice, when I see patients, it’s 100 percent telehealth now. Because of the jumpstart provided by COVID, telehealth is going to be significantly more prevalent in the future. It is a very important part of the students’ education to participate in and understand telehealth because it may be a big piece of their practices going forward.”
