Preceptor Update Information !!

Dear Members,

Since its a new year and new semester, my usual 10 per week emails from graduate students seeking preceptors have almost doubled. Your concerns, their concerns, and my concerns over this matter are one of my top priorities of 2014 and will be addressed on our first state-wide conference call of the year.

If you all will recall, I laid out a very detailed plan last year for the students and members that we want to uphold to decrease everyone's anxiety over this matter. I will repost it and place it in a file as a tool kit. Please review it.

I want to encourage each of you that when you are approached about this matter, please consider this very carefully. Each of us were at this stage one time in our educational path and required the assistance of a preceptor. Otherwise, we would have never graduated from our program. The added twists to this phenomena are the increased volume of graduate nursing students needing preceptors and the online graduate nursing programs.  Even though you may not be familiar with the student's school or the program, this does not translate into a weaker or poorer curriculum. All of these programs require stringent criteria to ever be approved. I know because I assisted personally in the design and development of one such program.

Only you can decide if you are at a place to assist these students. However, by doing so and becoming a preceptor you are investing in another individual's future as a future CNS or NP- an individual that you may need to provide you or your family member medical attention one day !

UAPRN of Georgia is in the process of exploring different avenues to reward our members who are devoted to honoring our mission and our comittment to the next generation of APRNs by serving as a preceptor. Please stay tuned for the development of this area, but please also give serious consideration to being a preceptor and mentor. Isn't that the role of an APRN?

Thank you to our members who have already done so and continue to uphold an area of our organization that I hold extremely important to our organizational advancement and our profession.

Dr. James F. Lawrence

State UAPRN President