Moving during your UC clinicals: what to check before you relocate

First: can UC place clinicals in your new state?

Seven states are closed to UC graduate clinicals: Arizona, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Tennessee. UC's online graduate programs aren't open to students located there either. DNP programs also exclude Washington. U.S. territories, embassies and other countries are ruled out as well, apart from military bases, where UC warns a contract may take six months to a year and still fall through.

Some tracks are tied to the tri-state area. AGACNP at every level, and the AGPCNP and Pediatric Acute Care NP certificates, are open only to residents of Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana. If you're on one of those and planning to leave the region, talk to your program before anything else. Our state authorization page has the program-by-program detail.

Your RN license has to follow you

Your RN license has to be current, active and unrestricted in whichever state hosts your clinical, and for telehealth hours, in the patient's state. The Preceptor Application asks for your license state and whether it's a compact license, so settle that question before you move.

If your license won't be valid in the new state, apply there early. Licensing time is outside UC's control, and a clinical can't start without it. Kansas adds a wrinkle: UC gives Kansas APRN students NURS8098, a variable-credit clinical elective covering the extra hours the Kansas Board of Nursing requires, so ask whether it applies if you're moving there. See RN license rules for UC clinicals.

Compliance: expect to redo some of it

Relocation is one of the three triggers UC names for buying a fresh CastleBranch package, alongside a specialty change and a gap in enrollment. Right now UC's Critical Requirements page shows all package purchases paused until further notice, so ask how students who relocate are being handled. Where a state-specific package code applies, UC's instructions have you order it by the preceptor packet deadline.

Other checks can follow you too:

• Supplemental state background checks for APRN clinicals in AR, FL, IA, IL, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NE, NH, NJ, OH, PA, SD, TX, WA (MSN and certificate only) and WI.
• A fingerprint-based state and national background check for Ohio residents and anyone doing clinicals in Ohio.
• Each new site's onboarding, often run through a platform such as ACEMAPP or myClinicalExchange.

California, North Dakota and Wyoming paperwork

Three states need forms that stay out of the preceptor packet and are sent to constateauth@uc.edu no less than seven days before the semester. California uses the Board of Registered Nursing's Nurse Practitioner Program Preceptor Form, one per California preceptor. North Dakota needs a Facility Availability Verification signed by the facility, and Wyoming uses its Board of Nursing's Faculty Qualification Sheet.

California also changes a PMHNP rule. Internship I there can be precepted by an NP, a physician, a clinical psychologist or, with the program director's approval, a psychiatrist, instead of the licensed therapists UC accepts elsewhere. More on the CA, ND and WY forms.

New state, new preceptor search

Your preceptors must be licensed in the state where you train, so a move nearly always means a fresh search, and it can change who qualifies. UC accepts physician assistant preceptors only in the states it lists, which include Kentucky, Michigan and Texas but not Ohio or Indiana. A few large systems elsewhere, including Allina in Minnesota and Stanford Health Care in California, have to be cleared with your CSC before you approach them.

Each new site needs an Educational Affiliation Agreement, at least six weeks for UC's standard one, and each preceptor needs a Preceptor Application in by the packet deadline. UC's handbook adds that placement isn't based on housing or family obligations, so a move doesn't change what UC expects of you.

Timing the move

1. Tell your CSC firstBefore you sign a lease, email your coordinator with the new state, the moving date and your next practicum term.
2. Check authorization and residencyConfirm the state is open to your program and that your track has no residency limit.
3. Sort out the licenseMake sure your RN license will be valid there before your first clinical day.
4. Move between terms if you canHours count only within semester dates, and switching sites mid-term means a new approval and agreement against the clock.
5. Search against the packet deadlineStart the new-state search early enough for the packet, any state forms and CastleBranch to land on time.

A new-state search, done for you

A move is when a local network stops helping, because your contacts stay behind. Give us the new state and your next practicum term, and we start searching there: preceptors licensed in that state, sites close to your new home that fit your track, and a first-call check on whether each site will sign UC's standard agreement.

We flag the state-specific pieces early too, from California's preceptor form to a supplemental background check, so they're handled well before the packet Friday. The goal is a preceptor lined up for the day you're settled somewhere UC allows, with the application details ready for your CSC, who gives the final approval. Tell us where you're moving.