UT Tyler NP clinicals in Austin and Central Texas
Central Texas runs from Austin's suburbs through Waco, Temple-Killeen and Bryan-College Station, roughly 135 to 260 miles from Tyler. Its hospital systems publish what a school must sign and complete, from affiliation agreements to orientation modules, but no page found explains how an NP student gets a preceptor. Under UT Tyler's model you propose that preceptor, and a local search is what gets it done.
Find a Central Texas preceptor
Tell us your city, track and next UT Tyler course, and your placement advisor searches from Austin to Bryan for you.
Four metro areas and a rural ring
This guide uses the 30 counties of Texas DSHS Public Health Region 7, home to about 4.1 million people in July 2025, 12.9% of Texas. Four metro areas hold most of them: Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Killeen-Temple, Waco and College Station-Bryan, with Brenham as a smaller hub. Sixteen counties are nonmetro, and eight of them, Blanco, Freestone, Hamilton, Lee, Leon, Madison, Mills and San Saba, have an urban population under 5,000 or none.
Austin passed a million residents, followed by Killeen, Waco, Round Rock, College Station, Georgetown, Temple and Bryan. From Tyler the drive is roughly 135 miles to Waco, 160 to College Station, 165 to Temple, 190 to Killeen and 230 to Austin, so Austin-area FNP students should plan OSCE trips early.
Austin's systems and the workforce board's placement system
Ascension Seton runs Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, Dell Children's Medical Center, Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin and hospitals in Round Rock, Cedar Park, Kyle, Burnet and Luling. No public Ascension page on how schools request nursing or APRN placements was found. St. David's HealthCare, a partnership of HCA with two local foundations, runs five hospitals in Austin, Round Rock and Georgetown; its student page, read from an archived June 2026 copy, covers a paid externship and a paid capstone program for pre-licensure students and says nothing about NP students.
Austin also has a regional layer run by a public workforce board rather than a hospital council. Workforce Solutions Capital Area runs the Central Texas Healthcare Partnership's subscription clinical placement system for nursing, surgical technology and EMS students, reporting over 18,000 rotations a year for 14 colleges and universities. Its page adds that nursing students at Ascension and St. David's must finish the first four Bridging the Gap modules before a rotation starts.
None of this replaces UT Tyler's own steps: the Self-Placement Request with your preceptor's details, faculty approval, the Clinical Coordinator's clearance and a signed affiliation agreement for a new facility, all before any hour counts.
Temple, Waco, Killeen and Bryan-College Station
- Baylor Scott & White: the Temple flagship and McLane Children's in Temple, Hillcrest in Waco, plus College Station, Round Rock, Pflugerville, Lakeway, Marble Falls, Taylor and Brenham. Its school-side requirements are summarized in the questions below
- St. Joseph Health (CommonSpirit) in Bryan, College Station, Navasota, Madisonville and Caldwell, its hospitals now without the old CHI prefix; no student page found
- Ascension Providence in Waco and AdventHealth in Killeen and Lampasas; AdventHealth's student resources page offers paid nurse tech jobs, and no rotation page was found
- Central Texas VA hospitals in Temple and Waco and a clinic in Austin; for Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Cavazos, no statement on civilian NP students was found
- CHRISTUS Santa Rosa in San Marcos, where the CHRISTUS system page asks a current student's faculty advisor to identify the site and contact its research and academics office
Shortage counties and community health centers
Outside the four metro cores, the shortage map is nearly solid. HRSA's files (records dated September 25, 2026) give 14 counties a county-wide geographic primary care designation and 12 more a low-income designation, with Limestone's low-income score of 20 the region's highest; only Burnet, Hays, Travis and Williamson have none. For mental health, 27 of 30 counties are designated, Robertson and low-income McLennan scoring 18.
CMS lists 14 critical access hospitals, in towns from Gatesville, Clifton and Hamilton to Hillsboro, Groesbeck and Llano, plus eight psychiatric hospitals. Health centers run 119 sites: CommUnityCare (36, Travis County Healthcare District), Lone Star Circle of Care (30, from Georgetown to Bastrop), Waco Family Medicine (21, Waco, McGregor, Temple, Hillsboro) and the Brazos Valley Community Action Agency (14, Bryan to Madisonville) lead the list.
Central Texas settings for each UT Tyler course
| UT Tyler course | Where to look in Central Texas |
|---|---|
NURS 5453 (pediatrics) | Pediatric practices and health center sites; Dell Children's and McLane Children's are inpatient hospitals, so outpatient volume means practices and clinics |
NURS 5454 (sexual and mental health) | Women's health practices and health centers such as People's Community Clinic and CommuniCare |
NURS 5455, NURS 5347, NURS 5349 | Family practices in the metros, rural health clinics and the critical access towns |
PMHNP NURS 5367 to NURS 5373 | The eight psychiatric hospitals on the CMS list and outpatient psychiatry in the designated counties |
AGACNP NURS 7383 to NURS 7388 | Level I centers at Baylor Scott & White Temple and Dell Seton; Darnall at Fort Cavazos is Level III |
PMHNP preceptors and facilities must be Texas-licensed, with you and your patients in Texas as well; the Texas-only clinicals guide explains why a telehealth preceptor based in another state does not qualify. The PMHNP practicum guide covers the 125 inpatient hours.
Why Central Texas UT Tyler students choose us
Central Texas systems spell out what the school signs and what the student completes, but none says who finds an NP preceptor. Under UT Tyler's model that is you, and it is the piece we deliver. Your placement advisor finds a clinician in your own metro or county, matches the clinician to your UT Tyler course while respecting its rules on employers and relatives, and hands you what the Self-Placement Request needs.
We track each system's extra steps, such as Baylor Scott & White's 90-day orientation window, keep Exxat compliance and onboarding moving, and stay on call to replace a preceptor who drops. Whether you live in Round Rock, Killeen or Brenham, the search starts from your address. Start with the request form.
Questions UT Tyler students ask
Can UT Tyler NP students use the Central Texas Healthcare Partnership placement system?
It is a subscription system run by Workforce Solutions Capital Area, and its page describes rotations for nursing, surgical technology and EMS students at 14 colleges and universities. Nothing published shows whether UT Tyler takes part, so ask the Clinical Coordinator before relying on it. Your own route still runs through a willing preceptor and UT Tyler's approval.
What does Baylor Scott & White require before a rotation in Temple or Waco?
Its page asks for an affiliation agreement between the system and a school certified by the State of Texas, an online nursing, PA and allied health orientation completed within 90 days before the rotation starts, and a school attestation letter for each rotation period. Orientation done earlier than 90 days out has to be repeated, so time it to your start date.
Is Austin too far from Tyler for a UT Tyler NP program?
No. UT Tyler NP students complete clinical hours near home anywhere in Texas, so distance matters only for campus dates. FNP students come to Tyler for OSCE days, usually around Week 11, and the PMHNP includes as many as two hands-on clinical experiences at the Tyler campus. The OSCE guide shows how to plan clinicals around those dates.
Can I train at the Temple VA as a UT Tyler NP student?
The Central Texas VA reports more than 250 academic affiliations and about 1,300 trainees a year, but its only published NP program is a paid post-graduate residency for new FNP and adult-gerontology primary care graduates. No public page explains how NP students are placed there, so a VA preceptor goes through UT Tyler's approval and agreement steps like any other site.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against UT Tyler's own catalog, syllabi, program pages and clinical policies, and Texas rules. Your course, your program coordinator and the Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
UT Tyler asks you to choose your clinical site. We find it.
Tell us your UT Tyler track, where in Texas you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and gather everything your Self-Placement Request needs, so faculty can approve it before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NURS 5453, adult and geriatric care forNURS 5455, psychiatric care forNURS 5367 - Texas-licensed preceptors who clear UT Tyler's supervisor, relative and site rules
- Anywhere in Texas, from the Piney Woods to the Valley
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.