Unlike physician assistant (PA) programs, who are required by their accrediting body to arrange all clinical rotations for their students, nurse practitioner (NP) programs do not have this requirement and, instead, leave this responsibility up to the NP students, the majority of which are registered nurses (RNs) working full time jobs and attending these graduate education programs part-time. Some find their education (and costs) unnecessarily extended because they can’t find a rotation. The cost of an NP program is comparable to that of most PA programs, yet the PA program must shoulder the administrative burden of finding and vetting clinical practice sites and preceptors, a task that is both time and cost consuming. NP programs, however, are able to funnel this resources back into the program coffers, forcing the student to “go it alone” to find quality preceptors and practice opportunities. There is no honorable reason for this to occur, it is a vessel for decreased program costs resulting in increased profits for NP programs. It also results in students lost through attrition or graduates with subpar clinical skills directly related to the difficulty in a student personally finding quality clinical sites.

It is time this practice comes to an end. It’s time we unite and send a message to the accrediting bodies, the Commission on Collegiate Nurse Education and the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing that forcing students to find their own rotations is an unethical educational practice and is no longer acceptable. Nurse Practitioner programs must be responsible for finding their students quality rotation sites and clinical preceptors! This should be a strictly enforced accreditation standard for all NP programs. This is standard practice for allopathic and osteopathic medical schools and physician assistant programs. Our future nurse practitioners deserve the same standard in their respective programs as well!

While this petition may not singularly convince the accrediting bodies to make the change, it will to begin to shine a beacon onto this educational atrocity and bring fairness and equality to our nurse practitioner colleagues. As a physician assistant, I believe my nurse practitioner colleagues deserve the same educational opportunities my program afforded me, so we and our physicians partners can globally provide our patient the highest excellence in healthcare.