What does a preceptor do?

Teaching in your own practice

Precepting is teaching by doing. The student joins you in your real work, and the lessons come from your real patients: how you open a visit, what you ask first, how you examine, how you decide, how you explain a plan. Nothing about your practice needs to change. Students come to learn exactly the way you already work.

Most preceptors find the teaching happens naturally once they start thinking out loud. Saying why you ordered a test, or why you did not, is often the most valuable thing a student hears all day.

Guiding patient care

As the rotation goes on, the student takes on more of each visit. They take the history, examine the patient and present to you before you go in together. They propose an assessment and a plan, and you confirm, adjust and sign. Every order and prescription stays with you, and you see every patient your student sees.

The pace is yours to set. A student in their first rotation may watch for most of a week; a student near graduation may lead most visits by the end of theirs.

Reviewing hours

Students log their clinical hours, and often the patients they saw, in the school’s clinical log system. Your part is to review the log and confirm it matches what happened: the dates, the hours and the kind of care the student gave. Many preceptors do this once a week, in a few minutes.

When you precept virtually with Preceptorate, our team runs the mentorship sessions with your student, and your part is to review and sign off the hours they log.

Completing evaluations

Schools ask preceptors to evaluate their students, usually at the midpoint and at the end of a rotation. The forms rate the student against the course objectives, such as history taking, physical examination, clinical reasoning, documentation and professionalism, with room for comments.

Good evaluations are specific: what the student does well, and the one or two things that will help them most next. Our guide to student evaluations walks through the forms.

What the school and Preceptorate take care of

A preceptor’s time goes to the student. Around that, the school and our team handle the rest:

• The affiliation agreement between the school and your facility.
• The school’s preceptor forms and the documents it asks for.
• The orientation packet, course objectives and evaluation forms.
• Scheduling the evaluations and sending each form when it is due.
• For virtual precepting, the mentorship sessions with your student.
• Your payments, each one on record in your portal.

A typical day with a student

A clinic day with a student often starts with a short huddle over the schedule: which patients the student will see first, and what to focus on. Through the day the student sees patients, presents to you, and you see each patient together. A few minutes at the end of the day go to one teaching point and a look at what to practice tomorrow.

On a virtual rotation the rhythm is weekly: the student completes their online hours, our team runs the mentorship sessions, and you review and sign off the week.

Teaching methods that save time

Two short models are used across medical and nursing education because they fit inside a busy clinic. The One-Minute Preceptor (Neher and colleagues, 1992) has five steps: get a commitment, probe for supporting evidence, teach a general rule, reinforce what was right and correct mistakes. SNAPPS (Wolpaw and colleagues, 2003) hands the lead to the student: summarize, narrow the differential, analyze it, probe the preceptor, plan management and select an issue to read about.

Both turn a two-minute case presentation into real teaching. Our guide to teaching clinical reasoning covers each step.

Preceptor, site supervisor, field instructor

Different professions use different titles for the same role. Nursing and PA programs say preceptor. Counseling programs say site supervisor, social work programs say field instructor, and behavior analysis uses fieldwork supervisor. The core of the role is the same everywhere: an experienced professional who lets a student learn inside real practice, guides the work and confirms the hours.

Skills a student builds with you

Over a rotation, a student turns classroom knowledge into clinical skill. With a preceptor, they practice:

• A focused, organized history.
• An examination suited to the visit.
• A differential diagnosis and an assessment they can defend.
• A plan that fits the patient, the evidence and the setting.
• Clear, accurate documentation.
• Patient education in plain language.
• Working within a care team and knowing when to ask.

Questions