NRS 862: medical-surgical hours in the Clarkson College AGACNP track
NRS 862 Applying Acute Care Concepts is the second acute care course in Clarkson College's AGACNP sequence, set on acute inpatient units with medical-surgical care as the catalog's example. MSN and certificate students log 160 clinical hours in it; BSN to DNP students log 200. Two details shape the search: hospitalists work in rotating groups, and if you work med-surg yourself, your own unit is off the table.
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Tell us your Clarkson program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your course.
The medical-surgical setting Clarkson names
The 2026-27 catalog places NRS 862 on acute inpatient units and offers medical-surgical care as its example. Clarkson's November 2023 AGACNP sheet is more specific still: hospitalist med/surg. Both point you to the hospital medicine service that manages patients on medical-surgical floors.
NRS 862 requires NRS 861, and it is the prerequisite for NRS 863, so it sits in the middle of the acute care ladder. The step up from NRS 861 is in the setting: short-stay and sub-acute beds give way to full medical-surgical admissions, possibly on the same hospitalist service you used before.
Because only one clinical course runs at a time, NRS 862 fills a whole term on its own. What makes it harder than it looks is not the unit but the way hospital medicine is staffed, and the rules Clarkson attaches to every provider you work beside.
Hospitalist groups and the agreement count
Hospitalists tend to work in groups on rotating blocks of shifts, and that runs into two Clarkson rules at once.
First, Clarkson's 2023 sheets demand paperwork for each clinician whose patients you help treat, practice partners among them. A week spent shadowing whichever hospitalist happens to be on service could involve four or five providers, and each one needs completed paperwork before those hours count.
Second, the same sheets stop at two preceptors per course unless course faculty put an exception in writing. The workable answer is to build your schedule around one or two hospitalists and follow their shifts. If the group assigns students by rotation instead, ask faculty for written approval early, and get every provider onto an agreement before the first shift.
Legal names matter here too. A hospitalist group can be a separate company from the hospital it staffs, and the DocuSign form needs the exact legal name of the agency you train with. The agreement page covers the form field by field.
If your RN job is on a med-surg floor
Clarkson expects graduate nursing students to work as RNs throughout the program, and the November 2023 sheet lets you train at your employer only in a department other than your own. Of the four acute courses, NRS 862 is where that rule bites hardest for a medical-surgical nurse.
Another med-surg unit in the same hospital, or the hospitalist service on a different floor, may satisfy it; your home unit does not. Keep clinical hours and paid hours in separate records, and remember that relatives cannot precept you at all, wherever they work.
Training where you are employed has real advantages, from knowing the charting system to a shorter drive, and it is often worth pursuing on a different floor. The workplace clinicals page walks through the separation Clarkson expects.
Carrying your NRS 861 preceptor forward
Some hospitalists cover both short-stay and medical-surgical patients, so continuing with your NRS 861 preceptor is worth asking about. It saves an introduction, and the site's affiliation agreement is already known to Clarkson's Compliance office, which confirms an existing agreement rather than starting from scratch.
The form is what resets. Clarkson's sheets tie each agreement to one preceptor, one course and one term, so the same clinician at the same facility still means a new filing. The NRS 862 agreement is due by the Nov. 1, Mar. 1 or Jun. 1 date before its term, which lands while NRS 861 is still running, so raise it with your current preceptor weeks ahead rather than in the last days of the course.
Typhon will not list a new preceptor or site until the DocuSign file is closed out, and Clarkson's 2021-22 handbook throws out any hours logged before final approval.
Pacing 160 hours
Catalog totals for NRS 862 are 160 hours at the master's and certificate level and 200 under the doctoral plan that began in Spring 2024. With the handbook's even-spread rule and half by midterm, the load works out as follows. These are our computed figures, not Clarkson's.
| Plan | Total hours | Per week, fall or spring (15 weeks) | Per week, summer (12 weeks) | Needed by midterm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSN or certificate | 160 | About 10.7 | About 13.3 | 80 |
| BSN to DNP | 200 | About 13.3 | About 16.7 | 100 |
NRS 862 has the roomiest specialty allowance among the first three acute courses: the November 2023 sheet caps specialty hours at 50 here, against 40 in NRS 861 and NRS 863. Faculty clear specialty time before it happens, and the sheet leaves room for up to 10 observation-only hours. Falling short at midterm? See behind on clinical hours.
Our desk's NRS 862 search
Clarkson students hand us the middle of the sequence because we treat it as a scheduling job as much as a search. Your placement advisor finds a hospitalist service near you with medical-surgical patients, confirms that any NP on the team holds acute care certification, and pins down the one or two providers you will actually follow.
We check that the service sits outside your own department, gather every provider's details and the group's legal name for the DocuSign agreement, and have the package ready ahead of the deadline that falls during NRS 861. If the group reshuffles its roster mid-term, we line up a qualified replacement. Then we move straight on to NRS 863. Send your course and city through the contact form.
Questions Clarkson students ask
Can I do NRS 862 on the unit where I work?
Your home unit is off limits. Clarkson's November 2023 sheet lets employed students train at their workplace only in a department other than their own. A different medical-surgical unit or a hospitalist service on another floor may work, with clinical hours recorded apart from paid shifts. Course faculty and your advisor make the final call.
Do I need an agreement for every hospitalist I work with?
Yes. Clarkson's 2023 sheets want paperwork on file for each clinician whose patients you care for, members of the same group included, and they cap a course at two preceptors without written faculty consent. Following one or two hospitalists therefore works better than shadowing whoever is on service that day.
How many specialty hours are allowed in NRS 862?
Up to 50, according to Clarkson's November 2023 AGACNP sheet, the highest cap among NRS 861, NRS 862 and NRS 863. Specialty time needs course faculty approval beforehand, and the specialty provider needs a completed agreement just like your main preceptor. The sheet also permits up to 10 optional observation hours.
What do I need before I can register for NRS 862?
Two things. The 2026-27 catalog lists NRS 861 as the prerequisite, and it marks NRS 862 as requiring preceptor and clinical site approval before registration. Clarkson's 2021-22 handbook adds that students cannot register without submitting the site and preceptor agreement form, apart from two narrow exceptions.
How many clinical hours is NRS 862?
The 2026-27 catalog lists 160 for MSN and post-graduate certificate students, while doctoral students on the Spring 2024 plan complete 200. The 150-hour figure you may have seen belongs to NRS 861, the course before it. Across the whole MSN track, the five clinical courses add up to 750 hours.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Clarkson College's own catalog, program pages and published nursing documents. Your course faculty and Graduate Nursing advisor have the final word.
Clarkson asks you to find your preceptor. We make the search the easy part.
Tell us your Clarkson track, your city and your next clinical course. We line up preceptors who fit the NRS course and Clarkson's rules, gather the details the site and preceptor agreement asks for, and flag early whether the site needs a new affiliation agreement.
- Preceptors matched to the course: all-ages primary care for FNP, acute care units for AGACNP, psychiatric providers for PMHNP
- License, experience and site details checked against Clarkson's rules before the agreement is filed
- Every clinical course planned in sequence, close to home in a state where Clarkson's graduate nursing meets requirements
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