Liberty nursing clinical hours, track by track

Every Liberty track's hours in one table

Find your track, then read the notes further down for the detail. Figures come from the 2026-27 Graduate and Undergraduate Catalogs unless a row says otherwise. The catalog says its degree plans apply to students starting between fall 2026 and summer 2027, so if you began earlier, you may be on a different plan with different numbers.

NP doctorates: 750 NP hours plus 300 DNP hours

The FNP, Post-BSN PMHNP and Post-MSN PMHNP plans each require 1,050 practicum hours, and the catalog divides that total into two blocks. The 750 NP hours belong to the specialty practicums, where you see patients under a preceptor. The 300 DNP hours belong to NURS 840 through NURS 843, four courses built around systems leadership under faculty guidance.

What the catalog leaves out is a number for each course. It never says how the 750 hours divide across NURS 771, NURS 772 and NURS 838, or across NURS 768, NURS 769 and NURS 770. The only per-course FNP figures in view come from an earlier plan, which put NURS 838 at 280 hours and each DNP practicum at 112 hours inside a 1,232-hour total. Treat those as history.

For your own term's targets, go to the course syllabus and the practicum team. The course detail lives on the FNP practicum page and the PMHNP practicum page.

Post-master's DNP: 560 hours toward a 1,000-hour floor

The 36-credit post-master's DNP lists "Successful completion of 560 Practicum hours" among its graduation requirements. A catalog footnote points to CCNE's rule of no fewer than 1,000 practicum hours post-BSN. Depending on how many of your MSN hours count, you may need more than 560 at Liberty.

Liberty settles the starting figure at admission. Your MSN program director completes the DNP Practicum Hour Verification Form with your total supervised graduate clinical hours, and Liberty completes the form itself for its own MSN graduates. If your MSN hours plus 560 fall short of 1,000, the difference is yours to make up in the DNP practicums.

The course list allows NURS 843 to be attempted up to three times to finish the required hours, and the post-master's plan caps it at three enrollments. The hour verification page walks through the arithmetic and what to ask.

MSN, RN-to-BSN and residential BSN hours

Each 36-credit MSN concentration carries 300 practicum hours across three courses, and the online MSN page frames 300 as a minimum. The MSN/MBA and MSN/MSHA use the Nursing Administration trio and the same 300 hours. Informatics words its requirement differently, as "practice experience hours and/or project hours," but the total is still 300. No MSN plan splits the hours per course.

The online RN-to-BSN has no traditional practicum. Its one clinical piece sits in NURS 440, where the course guide sets two eight-hour community shifts, 16 hours in all, at a location and with a preceptor you choose and submit for faculty approval. The RN-to-BSN guide covers it.

The residential BSN in Lynchburg works differently again. Sites are assigned clinical partners, and Liberty's 2025 hours sheet lists 462 direct client care hours and 101 simulation hours counted toward direct clinical, plus 102 skills lab hours, across the core courses.

Where Liberty's own sources disagree

Liberty publishes hours in the catalog, on program pages and in older plans and FAQs, and they do not always line up. The 2026-27 catalog is the current plan of study, but your start date decides which plan binds you. Raise any of these with the practicum team or your advisor in writing.

• PMHNP certificate: the catalog lists NURS 754 (224 hours) and NURS 755 (280 hours), 18 credits; the online page lists NURS 768, 769 and 770 and 19 credits, with no hours; an undated FAQ says 17 credits. See the certificate practicum page.
• PMHNP doctorates: 1,050 hours in the catalog, "over 1,000" on the Post-BSN page, and 1,064 in an earlier plan.
• FNP: 1,050 hours now; an earlier plan listed 1,232 hours and 78 credits.
• Credit totals: Post-BSN PMHNP 66 or 65; Post-MSN PMHNP 55, 54 or 58; RN-BSN 120 or 126.
• MSN: 300 hours now, against 200 per track in the 2022-23 MSN handbook.

How hours are logged and checked

Liberty replaced Typhon with InPlace starting in fall 2022, and InPlace holds placement records, evaluations and logs. Liberty's 2023 orientation page for DNP and APRN preceptors says they complete student evaluations through the InPlace tool. The InPlace guide covers the logging side.

The newest public MSN handbook, from 2022-23, adds rules worth confirming for your term: hours count only between the course's term dates, you and your preceptor meet before any hours are logged, and the preceptor validates the hours. No Liberty page found says whether simulation counts toward NP or MSN totals, so do not assume it does.

Telehealth is the other variable. PMHNP students may use telehealth sites for up to half their practicum hours; FNP students may not use them at all. The telehealth hours page sets out what that rule does and does not settle.

Why students with hours to find choose us

Hours only start once a preceptor and site are approved, and a gap there is what pushes a student off plan. We search for preceptors and sites that fit your track and the hours you have left, in person near you or, for PMHNP, by telehealth within Liberty's 50% limit. We help you pull together what the Gate course and the practicum team ask for, and we stay on call if a preceptor withdraws partway through.

If you are behind, we start from the hours you still owe and the weeks left in your term, and build the search around them. Liberty decides on each placement, and we make sure it has everything it needs to do so. If a second pair of hands would help, send us your track and start term.