Clinical hours in each UL Lafayette nursing program

Every program's total, side by side

Each figure in this table comes from the 2026-27 catalog unless the last column says otherwise. Where UL Lafayette prints a course's share of the total, the table gives it. Where it prints only a program minimum, the table says so instead of dividing the number by the count of courses, because an even split is not what UL Lafayette publishes.

The PMHNP certificate: 510 hours after 60 observational

The Post-Master's Certificate is the one nurse practitioner route where UL Lafayette publishes hours per course. On its online page, NURS 590 (psychotherapy) carries 60 observational hours, and the direct care courses carry 180 (NURS 591), 210 (NURS 592) and 120 (NURS 597). The catalog's 510 is exactly the last three added together, so the observational hours are planned separately from it.

In the catalog, every certificate clinical course is direct patient care alongside an approved advanced practice preceptor, with graduate faculty guiding the arrangement. Watch one naming trap: NURS 597, with its older-adult emphasis, is a different course from the MSN's NURS 593, though each one closes its own program's psychiatric sequence. The certificate practicums page walks through all four.

The DNP: 420 residency hours inside a 1,000-hour total

The post-MSN DNP works with two numbers. Its three residency courses carry 420 clinical clock hours between them, split 120, 180 and 120 from NURS 821 to NURS 823. Across the whole program you need 1,000 or more supervised practice hours after the bachelor's, and the 420 residency hours sit inside that 1,000 rather than on top of it.

Supervised hours from your MSN count toward the rest. DNP applicants hand in a Verification of Post-Baccalaureate Practicum Hours form, on which the MSN program director records supervised advanced practice hours; a form from your own school can replace it. Anyone still short registers for an Advanced Directed Studies course, NURS 809 through NURS 812, once the DNP Coordinator approves. The mentor and the project are covered on DNP residency.

Turning a total into a preceptor schedule

A total only becomes useful once it turns into weeks and clinic days. With 750 hours across three practicums and no published split, an FNP or PMHNP student needs Louisiana preceptors whose schedules can carry a steady weekly load, with most of the time spent beside an APRN certified in the student's population focus. That second point is a Louisiana Board of Nursing rule, and what counts as clinical hours shows how it shapes a log.

This planning is the heart of what we do for UL Lafayette students. However UL Lafayette handles graduate placement for your program, we search Louisiana for a preceptor and site that satisfy its rules, confirm the preceptor's calendar can actually hold your course's hours, and have the preceptor's license, certification and CV and the site's contract details ready well before the term. Share your program and start term in the form below and your placement advisor will map your hours with you.