Mississippi NP clinicals for UC students

UC programs that can use Mississippi sites

Mississippi is outside UC's seven closed states. Your program still has to accept Mississippians, and three UC options take only Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana residents.

IHL reviews the school, and that takes time

Mississippi splits nursing oversight unusually. Practical nursing programs are the Board of Nursing's job; RN degree programs sit under IHL, the State Institutions of Higher Learning board. IHL expects out-of-state undergraduate and graduate programs running clinicals in Mississippi to meet the state's standards, and it counts a clinical practicum as physical presence.

IHL Nursing Education then reviews the program, a process of up to three months, and the school must also belong to SARA or else hold MCCA authorization for non-SARA distance education. According to IHL's 2024 procedures manual, a program controlled from outside Mississippi should ask for that review a full four months ahead of its first rotation. It's UC's process, but it can set your start date, so ask your Clinical Site Coordinator whether UC's review covers your term before you contact a preceptor.

Where a PA can fit in your hours

Both UC documents that list PA-eligible states, the Clinical Planning page and the May 2026 Preceptor Guide, include Mississippi. UC still weighs each PA individually and caps the hours. On NP tracks, an NP in your population focus must cover at least 20% of your hours, and nurse-midwifery students may log no more than 20 hours with a PA, only in ANW8006 and with program director approval. How UC decides is on PA preceptors.

AANP counts Mississippi as reduced practice: NPs collaborate with a Mississippi-licensed physician or dentist under an arrangement the board has approved. That's the preceptor's to maintain. UC's question is whether they have a graduate degree, certification, at least twelve months in the role and an unencumbered Mississippi license.

Jackson, the Coast, and the Memphis problem

Jackson is Mississippi's largest metro, with Gulfport-Biloxi second and Hattiesburg smaller; north Mississippi also sits inside the Memphis metro. The systems to know are Memphis-based Baptist Memorial Health Care, which counts Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson among its Mississippi hospitals, then Forrest Health, UMMC (the University of Mississippi Medical Center), North Mississippi Health Services and Singing River Health System. We have no UC arrangement with any of them to point to.

Mind the state line. Memphis is in Tennessee, one of UC's seven closed states, so a clinic there is off the table even for a student living in the Mississippi part of the metro; Baptist Memorial's Mississippi hospitals are a separate question from its Tennessee ones. Louisiana is closed to UC graduate clinicals as well. See Tennessee.

Your RN license in Mississippi

IHL's standards want post-licensure students in APRN clinical courses to carry an unencumbered RN license for whichever state hosts their clinicals, and IHL holds schools from elsewhere to the same rule. Compact licenses have been valid in Mississippi since January 19, 2018, and its Board says a nurse in good standing whose primary residence is in a compact state may practice in other compact states, without an employer demanding a remote-state license. More on RN license for clinicals.

How we help in Mississippi

We search for Mississippi NPs, physicians and, once your CSC agrees, PAs suited to your track, and help you pull together what the Preceptor Application asks for. UC approves every preceptor and handles IHL. Reach us here.