Maryville preceptor canceled? Secure your hours first, then find a replacement

What to do first

Work through these in order, ideally within a day or two of the news. The first step gets harder with every day you wait, because a preceptor who has moved on tends to answer messages more slowly.

1. Get your logged hours approvedAsk the departing preceptor to sign off every hour you've logged together. Older Maryville guides had preceptors approve time logs and complete the NP Student Evaluation near the end of a rotation, so ask course faculty what they need from a preceptor who leaves early.
2. Keep your own copyWrite down dates, times, the kinds of patients you saw (with no identifiers) and your preceptor's name and license details.
3. Tell your course facultyFaculty approve your clinical and assign the final grade, so they should hear it from you first, with hours completed and hours left.
4. Tell the Online Clinical Team in writingAsk Maryville articles list onlineclinicalteam@maryville.edu for the Online Clinical Team. Say what happened and when, and whether the site itself is still open to you.
5. Restart the search the same dayUntil a replacement is approved you have no one to log hours with, so every day counts.

Before the term or mid-course: what changes

A drop before the term costs time but no hours. Your site and preceptor request in Exxat names someone who is no longer coming, so it has to be updated or replaced, and the new name goes through Maryville's review like any first request. If the start is close, need a preceptor fast sorts your options by weeks left.

A drop mid-course puts hours at stake as well as time. Work out what you've logged, what the course still needs and how many weeks remain, then share those numbers with faculty. If the gap looks too big to close in the time left, behind on clinical hours has the catch-up plan.

Either way, the preceptor you lose is attached to a specific course and site in Exxat. Keep that in mind when a friendly clinician offers to step in: an offer is not an approval.

Keep your account off hold

A drop doesn't pause your compliance dates, and a hold on your account would stall the replacement too. Per a June 2026 Ask Maryville article, one lapsed Exxat item sets the placement to “On Hold,” blocks both attendance and logging, and means any time put in during the lapse is done again. Going to clinical in that state counts as a breach of the site contract, and the article warns it could end in dismissal.

Scrambles are when renewals slip. Check these dates today:

• Your TB test, which must be within 12 months and renewed each year
• Your annual flu vaccine
• Your health insurance card, which Maryville asks for every year
• Your American Heart Association BLS card

If the replacement site asks for a more recent background check or drug screen, Maryville's guidance is to reorder it in Exxat with “Add New Record.”

Replacing the preceptor at the same site

The quickest replacement is often another clinician at the practice you already know. The site has already cleared you, and the agreement covering your placement may still apply, though Maryville doesn't publish whether it carries over, so confirm.

The new person still has to clear Maryville's bar in their own right: APRN, MD or DO credentials, board certification, a clean license and a year or more of practice. They also can't be family, your manager, someone you manage, a coworker you work beside, or the clinician who treats you. A candidate who isn't board certified needs an approved Preceptor Exception Form. Their details then go into your Exxat request.

When the site goes too

If the whole site is gone, the replacement is a new placement from Maryville's point of view. It needs a setting that fits your course, a signed agreement (Maryville's MOU or the site's own contract) and its own clearance of you, as explained on site approval.

The same applies if your preceptor moves to another practice and offers to keep teaching you there. The preceptor is the same, but the site is new, so it needs its own approval and agreement before your hours can move with them.

Build the new site's timing into your plan. Health systems often run their own onboarding, and Maryville's January 2024 onboarding article is clear that site onboarding doesn't replace the university's approval.

How we replace a preceptor

Replacing a preceptor quickly is what we're set up for. If a preceptor we found for you drops, we're already searching again; if yours came from anywhere else, we can start today. A placement advisor hunts for a replacement matched to your course, your remaining hours, the weeks left and your region, screens the preceptor and site against Maryville's rules, and helps you update the Exxat request. If your current site is still open to you, say so, since a clinician there may be the simplest fit.

Maryville approves a replacement the way it approves any first request, so the details we prepare are the ones its reviewers check. Use the form below, or the chat if you'd rather talk it through first.