NSU clinicals in Southwest Florida: Fort Myers, Naples and Charlotte County
NSU teaches the Entry and Accelerated BSN at its Fort Myers campus, but APRN students across Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties plan their clinicals from home. They face a region with fewer primary-care NPs relative to demand than any part of Florida except the Northwest, a Naples system that leaves securing the preceptor to the learner or school, and a Lee County system with no public NP process. Finding your own preceptor and naming them two semesters ahead is how you keep clinicals on this coast.
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Tell us your NSU program and your home ZIP area. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options near you that fit your NSU course.
Five counties and NSU's Fort Myers campus
Lee County holds Cape Coral, Fort Myers (the seat), Bonita Springs and Estero. Collier's seat is Naples, with Marco Island and Everglades City on the coast and Immokalee, unincorporated, inland. In Charlotte County, Punta Gorda is the seat and only city, and Port Charlotte is unincorporated. Hendry and Glades lie inland to the east. Federal statisticians split the area into three metros: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Naples-Marco Island and Punta Gorda.
The Fort Myers campus runs NSU's Entry and Accelerated BSN, and NSU's clinical coordinator assigns those students to sites within 75 miles of campus (see BSN clinicals). APRN students follow the graduate rule, measured from your residential ZIP code rather than from any campus.
A thinner primary-care NP base
The Florida Center for Nursing's Southwest region is exactly these five counties. In 2022 its primary-care NPs stood at 146% of modeled demand, second-lowest in the state after the Northwest's 101% and far below the South region's 312%. The same report expects the Southwest to be among the slowest regions to improve through 2037.
That compares clinicians with patients; it does not count preceptor openings, so read it as context, not a forecast of your search. One practical point for FNP students: Florida's rule lets a Florida-licensed MD or DO precept an NP student, which widens the primary-care pool. Whether NSU accepts a physician for a particular course is set in the graduate clinical guide, so settle that with your clinical coordinator first.
How Southwest Florida's hospitals take NP students
Four hospital groups are covered here, and they publish very different amounts. None of what follows says whether a system has an agreement with NSU.
- NCH (Naples) coordinates rotations for advanced practice registered nurse students alongside medical, PA and CRNA students. Its page puts securing an NCH preceptor on the learner or the home institution, warns that a start date may slip until an affiliation agreement is signed, and lists an onboarding packet, a HealthStream account, a badge and EMR training.
- Lee Health publishes nothing for NP students; its training page covers residencies, a paid student-nurse job and FSU medical students. Lee Health also runs Golisano Children's Hospital.
- HCA Florida has no hospital in Fort Myers itself, only a standalone emergency room run by HCA Florida Fawcett. Its Southwest hospitals are HCA Florida Lehigh in Lee County, Fawcett in Port Charlotte and Englewood. No student page was found for any of them.
- AdventHealth Port Charlotte took over ShorePoint Health Port Charlotte on March 1, 2025, and ShorePoint Punta Gorda closed for good after hurricane damage. No NP student process was found.
For AGACNP students, NCH is the one system of the four that states how an NP rotation begins, and it begins with a preceptor already secured. Bring that preceptor's details to your clinical coordinator before NSG 5629, since the school side and any agreement take time.
Health centers, VA clinics and the course each fits
Primary-care hours for NSG 5549 and NSG 5559 fit Southwest Florida's health centers: HRSA lists Family Health Centers of Southwest Florida, which also runs two sites in Charlotte, and Healthcare Network (Collier Health Services) in Immokalee. Lee County has two designated primary-care shortage areas, Fort Myers/Lehigh Acres and Pine Island; Immokalee belongs to the state's South Central Rural Area of Opportunity and hosts an FSU College of Medicine rural training site. The Department of Health offices in Lee, Collier and Charlotte are further public settings.
Bay Pines VA runs the Lee County VA Clinic in Cape Coral, the Naples VA Clinic and the Port Charlotte VA Clinic; there is no VA clinic named Fort Myers. VA trainees come through the school's affiliation agreement, not a student request.
For NSG 5589, the FNP pediatric course, look to pediatric practices, since Golisano is an inpatient children's hospital. PMHNP students need psychiatric practices or behavioral health programs for NSG 5719 onward.
Where 150 miles reaches from Fort Myers
Leave the preceptor slot empty and the clinical coordinator picks a site for you inside 150 miles of your home ZIP code, a placement NSU treats as settled. From Fort Myers that radius runs north through Sarasota to Tampa Bay and east across the Everglades to Broward and Miami-Dade. From Naples it reaches both Tampa and Miami. A Cape Coral FNP student could draw a site in Fort Lauderdale and owe it weekly hours all semester.
For the mechanics, see the 150-mile rule page; for your due date, the two-semester deadline page.
Florida's rule for a Southwest Florida preceptor
Wherever your site is on this coast, the preceptor must hold a Florida APRN, MD, DO or dentist license and your own RN license must be a chapter 464 license. Protocol NPs and autonomous primary-care NPs both count. The Florida preceptor rule guide explains the details.
Why Southwest Florida students choose us
In a region where NCH puts securing the preceptor on the learner or school, we take that job on first and do it thoroughly. We search from Punta Gorda to Naples and inland to Immokalee, match every preceptor to your NSU course, and prepare what your clinical coordinator will review long before your preceptor's name is due. The coordinator gives the approval; we see that it rests on a complete, accurate file.
Questions NSU students ask
Does NCH in Naples take NSU nurse practitioner students?
NCH coordinates rotations for APRN students and says the learner or home institution is responsible for securing a preceptor within the NCH system. Without an affiliation agreement, the start date may wait until one is signed. Whether NSU holds an agreement with NCH is not public, so bring the preceptor's details to your clinical coordinator early.
Is there an HCA Florida hospital in Fort Myers?
No. Fort Myers has a standalone HCA emergency room run by HCA Florida Fawcett. HCA's hospitals in the area are HCA Florida Lehigh in Lee County, Fawcett in Port Charlotte and Englewood, and none publishes a student placement page, so a named preceptor and your clinical coordinator are the starting point for any of them.
Does NSU's Fort Myers campus change how APRN students are placed?
No. The Fort Myers campus teaches the Entry and Accelerated BSN, and BSN placements there stay within 75 miles of campus. APRN students work on a different footing: either they give the clinical coordinator a preceptor's name two semesters before a clinical course, or the coordinator chooses a site inside 150 miles of home.
I live in Hendry or Glades County. What changes for me?
Both counties sit in the same Southwest workforce region. From an inland address, NSU's 150-mile radius reaches both coasts, so a coordinator placement could fall on the Gulf or the Atlantic side. Health centers such as Healthcare Network in Immokalee and the county Department of Health offices are good places to ask about primary-care precepting.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against NSU's own handbook, catalog and program pages. The graduate clinical guide, your course in Canvas, your clinical coordinator and your program director have the final word.
NSU lets you name your own preceptor. We make sure you have one, close to home and in time.
Tell us your NSU program, your home ZIP area and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors who fit the course and have everything ready for your clinical coordinator well before the two-semester notice.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP, acute care for AGACNP, psychiatric care for PMHNP, a practice site for DNP project hours
- Named early enough for NSU's two-semester notice, with license, credentials and site details ready for the coordinator
- Close to your home ZIP code, with clinic days we plan around your work schedule
Start your placement plan
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