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Nurses from the dedicated educational unit at Memorial Hermann visit the sim lab.

Help Prepare Your Future Co-workers

Preceptors play a vital role in nursing education by enabling students to gain experience in real-world clinical settings.


What Does a Preceptor Do?

As coach, mentor, and supervisor, a preceptor provides support as the student learns to put what they learned in the classroom into practice. Our preceptors work with faculty at Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston to help teach and evaluate skills during our students’ clinical rotations. We maintain contracts with hundreds of clinical sites throughout the Houston area and Texas to give our students diverse and rigorous preparation to work in hospital, out-patient, and home-health settings.

Preceptors supervise one student at a time per clinical rotation, and no more than two students per semester. They model humanistic, holistic nursing care practice, critical thinking behaviors, and use of evidence-based nursing practice while assisting students with time management and patient care. Review Cizik School of Nursing’s BSN preceptor guidelines for full details.


Two health care professionals in a hospital. Courtesy Getty Images.

Who Can be a Preceptor?

Preceptors must have at least one year of experience as a registered nurse, current Texas RN licensure, and Basic Life Saving certification. Cizik School of Nursing also requires a supervisor’s recommendation.

How does Cizik School of Nursing Support Preceptors?

Our clinical faculty visit our clinical sites regularly and are available by phone or email at all times during clinical rotations for consultations as requested by the preceptor or student. We work closely with the preceptor and clinical site to match student learning needs with appropriate assignments.

Preceptor and student in hospital. Courtesy Getty Images.