GRN 7121 Family Practicum I: your first 175 hours
GRN 7121 Family Practicum I is the first of Wilmington University's four FNP practicums: 4 credits and 175 direct care clinical hours. It comes after GRN 7101 and GRN 7103 and the paired GRN 7104 and GRN 7105, shares its semester with GRN 7106 and GRN 7107, and is the first course where your credentialing clearance, CPR card and RN license all have to be in order before a clinical day.
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Tell us your WilmU program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your WilmU course.
GRN 7121
Where GRN 7121 falls in the FNP
Practicum experiences come in the latter part of the WilmU FNP, and GRN 7121 opens them. The 2026-27 graduate catalog names four courses that come first and two that run alongside it.
| When | Course | What the catalog says |
|---|---|---|
| Before | GRN 7101, GRN 7103 | Required before GRN 7121 |
| Before | GRN 7104 Advanced Health Assessment Across the Lifespan | 4 credits, in a clinical laboratory setting |
| Before | GRN 7105 Differential Diagnosis and Clinical Decision Making Across the Lifespan | 2 credits, in the same semester as GRN 7104 |
| Same semester | GRN 7106, GRN 7107 | Taken alongside GRN 7121 |
| After | GRN 7122 Family Practicum II | The next 175 hours |
WilmU publishes no part-time or semester-by-semester plan for the MSN-FNP, so the term your GRN 7121 falls in comes from your own course plan in MyWilmU Degree Works. Check it early: that date is the one your preceptor search works back from. The lab-based courses before it have their own guide.
Clear these before your first clinical day
Four conditions stand between you and the first hour of GRN 7121, and each runs on its own clock.
- Clinical credentialing clearance. Background check and drug screen, both handled in the College's designated credentialing system and timed by the program handbook. Findings that stay unresolved block clinical courses. See clinical credentialing.
- Current CPR certification. WilmU lists cardiopulmonary certification among the conditions for NP clinical experiences.
- An RN license valid where the site is. A site across a state line needs a license that reaches that state; the RN license rule explains it.
- The site's own onboarding. Health systems run their own intake on top of WilmU's requirements, each on its own timeline.
NP students fall under the University's group professional liability insurance, so coverage is already in place when a site asks about it. If a site wants proof, ask the NP Program Chair how to get it.
A preceptor's yes does not start your hours. Clearance, a current CPR card and a license for the site's state all come first under WilmU's rules, so work on them while the search runs.
Why the first search takes the longest
GRN 7121 is the first time a site has to accept you as a WilmU NP student, and larger systems have gates of their own. On their own pages, ChristianaCare, Bayhealth and Beebe name Clinician Nexus for student onboarding; ChristianaCare states that it is closed to new affiliation agreements and wants graduate students to check their school's existing agreement before reaching out, and TidalHealth asks for a preceptorship request no later than 90 days ahead of the planned start.
Those steps sit on the site's side, so they take the same time however good the match is. Start early enough that a 90-day window still closes before your semester opens. Delaware NP preceptors sets out what each system publishes, and affiliation agreements explains why systems ask about them first.
The preceptor has to fit Delaware's rule for APRN program preceptors too, which for a family practicum points to a clinician licensed in a comparable focus who sees patients across the lifespan, approved by faculty.
Setting up your first preceptor
A good first practicum is set up before the first patient. These four steps keep your preceptor and your faculty working to the same plan.
- Get the syllabus early.Course materials live in Canvas. Ask course faculty for the
GRN 7121syllabus and objectives as soon as they are available, because your preceptor needs them before day one. - Orient the preceptor.Under Delaware's Board rules, an APRN program preceptor receives an orientation to the curriculum and to each course's aims, and faculty stay responsible for evaluating you. Walk your preceptor through what
GRN 7121asks of you and what faculty will ask of them. - Build the schedule to 175.Agree on clinic days that reach 175 direct care hours inside the term, leaving room for reading weeks and for the in-person seminars FNP practicum students attend twice a year.
- Settle the paperwork.Find out how hours are logged and signed and when evaluations are due. WilmU's public pages do not describe either, so the syllabus or course faculty are your source.
What to confirm with course faculty
The catalog gives GRN 7121 its hours and its place in the sequence and leaves the working details to the course. Before the semester, get answers to these:
- Whether the course runs as a 7-week block or a 15-week semester, which sets your weekly pace.
- What faculty need in order to approve your preceptor and site, and by when.
- How many of the 175 hours, if any, may come from planned simulation.
- How hours are logged, who signs them, and which evaluation forms your preceptor completes.
- The dates and place of the face-to-face seminars.
- Whether
GRN 7121is one of the FNP courses that carry an associated fee; placement costs lists what students pay for.
Keep the answers in writing alongside your preceptor's details. The program handbook may settle some of them before you ask.
How we help with GRN 7121
If your faculty are already helping with GRN 7121, we work alongside them; if the search begins with you, we run it from the first call. Either way we look for a family practice preceptor near home, at a site your RN license covers, whose own license fits Delaware's rule for APRN program preceptors.
We collect the preceptor's license details, credentials and contact information, chart the site's intake, and time all of it against your first practicum semester. Where a system onboards students through Clinician Nexus, we set out its steps early so they close before your first clinic day. Should a preceptor pull out, a replacement search starts at once. Your course faculty decide on the preceptor and site, and what we send ahead is complete, so that decision is not held up by a missing document. Tell us your semester in the form below.
Questions WilmU students ask
What are the prerequisites for GRN 7121 at Wilmington University?
Four courses, by the 2026-27 graduate catalog: GRN 7101 and GRN 7103, plus the paired GRN 7104 and GRN 7105. GRN 7106 and GRN 7107 run in the same semester as the practicum. Separately, clinical credentialing clearance, a current CPR card and an RN license for your site's state have to be in place before the first clinical day.
What license does a GRN 7121 preceptor need?
WilmU publishes no credential list for NP preceptors. Delaware's Board of Nursing rules for APRN programs look for a physician, APRN, PA or pharmacist whose license is active and unencumbered, whose practice focus is comparable to yours, and who is licensed, in the state where the precepting happens, at or above the level you are training for, with faculty approving the choice. Ask the NP Program Chair whether WilmU adds anything for your course.
Is GRN 7121 online?
The coursework sits in WilmU's online FNP, but the 175 hours are direct care clinical hours at a clinical site. The FNP overview also describes in-person seminars twice a year for practicum students, while listing the program's format as Online only. Ask course faculty where and when the seminars happen.
Can I start GRN 7121 hours before the semester begins?
WilmU's public pages do not say when GRN 7121 hours may begin. What they do make clear is the order: clearance, CPR and the right license first, clinical experience after. Ask course faculty about start dates before you book early clinic days with a preceptor.
What if my GRN 7121 site is in another state?
Then your RN license has to reach that state, since WilmU ties clinical experience to RN licensure in the state where it takes place. Check whether your current license, including a multistate one, reaches the site's state. For questions about studying online from outside Delaware, WilmU's Online Learning office handles state authorization.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Wilmington University's own program and curriculum pages, the 2026-27 graduate catalog, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences policies and the State Licensures by Program page. Your NP Program Chair, your course faculty and the College have the final word.
A WilmU practicum coming up? Your preceptor search starts here.
Tell us your WilmU program, where you live and when your next practicum starts. Whether WilmU's faculty help with your placement or you are starting the search yourself, we find preceptors who fit the course, check the health system's own intake steps, and organize the preceptor's license and credentials well before the first day.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family practice across the lifespan for
GRN 7121toGRN 7124, psychiatric mental health forGRN 7221toGRN 7224, doctorally prepared for the DNP - Clinicians who meet Delaware's rule for APRN program preceptors: an active APRN, PA, pharmacist or physician license in a comparable focus
- Close to home, in a state where you hold an RN license, with each system's onboarding mapped out early
Start your placement plan
Program, city and semester is all we need to begin.