Doing your Maryville clinicals at the place you work

The short answer: yes, off the clock

Maryville allows employer sites, with conditions. In the 2023 “Why Maryville Nursing” webinar, a speaker said “you may be able to use your place of employment,” provided it isn't a conflict of interest with your present role. The same answer drew the hard line: “You cannot be working during the time of the practicum.”

Maryville's 2023 MSN and post-master's certificate webinar added the hour rule. Hours you are paid to work can't be counted as clinical hours, and time worked in your job can't be counted toward a clinical rotation somewhere else either.

Both statements come from 2023 recordings. We found nothing newer that reverses them, but the current wording lives in your clinical packet and the Graduate Nursing Clinical Resource Center, so check there before you build a plan around your workplace.

What off the clock means in practice

Clinical time and paid time have to be separate blocks. A day where you work a shift in the morning and then follow an NP on the same unit in the afternoon is exactly the kind of blur that makes hours hard to defend later.

The practical version is simple. Schedule clinical days on days you are not rostered, arrive in the role of a student, and log only the hours your preceptor actually supervised. If your employer suggests using paid time off for clinical days, ask the Maryville Online Clinical Team whether that counts as working, because Maryville's public pages don't address it.

Keep your own record alongside the official log: dates, times, preceptor and what you did. Maryville already requires students to repeat hours done outside its rules in other situations, such as time logged while Exxat compliance had lapsed. Our page on clinical hour logs covers how time is recorded.

Who at work can't precept you

The February 2026 Maryville blog post “How to Find the Right Nursing Preceptor” lists who is excluded. At a workplace, most of these people are the ones standing next to you.

• A direct supervisor, or anyone else who evaluates your performance
• Anyone who reports to you
• A direct work colleague
• A relative
• Your own current healthcare provider

Direct work colleague is the exclusion that catches people. An NP you chart beside every shift is very likely out, however good a teacher they would be. An NP in a different clinic or department of the same system, with no role in your job, is a different question, and it's one to put to Maryville with the details before you commit.

Whoever you choose still has to meet Maryville's standard qualifications, set out on who can precept a Maryville student.

Does your workplace fit your track?

An employer site only helps if the setting matches your practicum. Maryville's 2023 webinar drew the lines by track.

• FNP, AGPCNP and PNP: a primary or preventive care setting, “nothing hospitalist”
• AGACNP: a hospitalist-type, acute care setting
• PMHNP: a psychiatric provider with prescribing authority; not a retail setting, and not primary care without a psychiatric provider

So an ICU nurse in the AGACNP track may already work somewhere suitable, while an FNP student in the same hospital probably needs the system's outpatient clinics instead. A PMHNP student who works in a primary care office needs a psychiatric provider in that practice for it to qualify.

Because the setting guidance comes from a 2023 recording, check your course's current setting rules in Canvas and the clinical packet before you ask anyone at work.

The site side: agreement, onboarding, education department

Your employer still has to be approved as a clinical site, separately from your preceptor, and being on staff doesn't skip that step. Maryville's March 2025 approvals article lists clearance from the site's education department or manager as one of four approvals you need before day one.

Your employer also needs a contract with Maryville: the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) or affiliation agreement, or the site's own “original contract,” which a 2021 Ask Maryville article says supersedes the MOU. That article suggests asking the site's HR, business or education department how it handles agreements. As an employee you may already know who those people are, which is a real advantage. The MOU and affiliation agreement page has the details.

Large systems may also run their own student onboarding. Maryville keeps an OnBoarding Information List and an Onboarding Request Form for those sites, and a January 2024 article says onboarding “does not supersede the University's approval process.” See onboarding requests.

Setting it up without tripping the rules

1. Pick a unit where no one manages youLook for a clinic, department or campus in your system where the preceptor has no role in your job and doesn't work alongside you.
2. Match the setting to your practicumCheck it against your course, for example NURS 641 for AGACNP or NURS 621 for FNP and AGPCNP.
3. Check the preceptor's credentialsLook up their license and board certification before you ask, so you know they qualify.
4. Talk to the education departmentAsk who handles student agreements and onboarding, and whether an agreement with Maryville is already in place.
5. Be open about the employment linkDescribe your job and the preceptor's relationship to you when you submit the Exxat request, so a reviewer doesn't find it later.
6. Keep the two schedules apartPut clinical days on days you aren't working, and keep your shift schedule and clinical schedule separate on paper.

Why working nurses choose us

Employer sites stall for predictable reasons: the only willing NP is your direct colleague, or the system's student slots are already full. That is precisely the problem we are built to solve. We look for a preceptor outside your reporting line, in another department of your system or a practice near home, check them against Maryville's relationship rules before anyone is asked, and assemble the preceptor and site details Maryville reviews. Maryville approves the preceptor and site, and we make sure the request answers the relationship questions before a reviewer has to ask. Use the form below to tell us where you work and what your track needs.