The NKU self-placement request in Medatrax

Self-placement request is NKU's term for a clinical placement the student has found. The Students page on NKU's NP Preceptors site says these requests are submitted to Medatrax and reviewed by the Contracts & Compliance team. For NKU's online nurse practitioner students, MSN and certificate alike, it is the standard route into a clinical rather than an exception.

Filing the request is a separate job from finding the preceptor. The search, and the rules a preceptor has to meet, come first; they are set out under NKU preceptor requirements. The request is the formal hand-off. From that point NKU's reviewers take over, and your part becomes answering anything they ask for without delay.

NKU's Students page lists three things each student has to learn to do: identify a preceptor, secure a clinical site and complete an affiliation agreement. The self-placement request is where those three pieces meet, which is why a request built on a half-confirmed preceptor or an unnamed site contact is hard for reviewers to clear.

NKU keeps the Medatrax walkthrough inside Canvas, but its public pages show what a reviewer will be looking for. Have each of these settled before you submit.

• The preceptor. Name, credential and role matched to your track, with a full year behind them in their present role and a license that is active and unencumbered.
• The site. Where the practicum happens, in an NKU-approved state, and a place that employs the preceptor.
• The preceptor's documents. CV or resume, license and the signed Preceptor Responsibilities form, all covered on preceptor paperwork.
• The Preceptor Profile. Your preceptor creates it in Medatrax, and it is the same account they later use to verify your hours.
• A site contact, if the site has never signed an affiliation agreement with NKU.
• Your own clearance. PreCheck and Sentry items, which Contracts & Compliance checks alongside the request.

Reviewers can only approve what they can see, so the order that works is: secure the preceptor, gather the documents, then submit.

NKU's Students page says Contracts & Compliance finalizes a placement once "all three portions" are approved. Only two of them are named on that page.

With all three approved, Contracts & Compliance finalizes the placement and you receive an official approval email through Medatrax. Keep that email with your clinical records: it is NKU's written confirmation that the rotation is cleared.

NKU's online FAQ puts the minimum lead time for preceptor information at 30 days and highly recommends 90. Aim for the 90. It leaves room for an affiliation agreement, a missing signature or a preceptor swap without moving your start date, and the dated breakdown by session is on NKU placement deadlines.

The same FAQ allows anywhere from one to four preceptors over the course of the MSN, so one preceptor can carry you through more than one rotation. If yours will, ask the MSN Student Placement Team or your concentration shell how NKU wants that reflected in Medatrax for the next session.

Several people review each request: coordinators, Contracts & Compliance and, when a new agreement is needed, the contact you named at the site. None of them can start until the request exists, so an early submission buys time for every one of them at once.

One line of NKU's online FAQ still points students to InPlace, which it calls "the clinical management system", for sending preceptor details and the Preceptor Agreement. That line has stayed the same from 2023 through 2026.

Every current source points the other way. The Students page, the Current Preceptors page and the Clinical Placement Specialist job NKU advertised in June 2026 all name Medatrax, and the FAQ's own section on hours points to Medatrax, which NKU was already using by December 2023. NKU's public pages never say whether the FAQ's Preceptor Agreement is the same document as the Preceptor Responsibilities form that preceptors now sign by Adobe Sign from the NP Preceptors home page. File your request in Medatrax, and if a Canvas announcement ever says something different, follow Canvas. The wider system is covered on Medatrax at NKU.

Approval opens the rotation, and Medatrax stays part of it. You log clinical time there, and your preceptor verifies the log weekly; verified entries cannot be edited afterward. Clinical hour logs explains the routine.

Your preceptor also evaluates you in Medatrax when the term closes. Before day one, NKU's 2023 readiness checklist has the preceptor swap contact details with you, agree on hours, schedule and objectives, orient you to the site, and meet with you and faculty by video.

Once the rotation is running, your first contact for course questions is the Clinical Instructor, whose name appears on your myNKU Class Schedule and in the Canvas course.

The work behind a self-placement request is the slow part, and it is exactly what we take on. A placement advisor secures a preceptor whose credential, state and employer already line up with NKU's rules, then gathers every preceptor document NKU lists before you open Medatrax.

When the site has no NKU agreement, we have the right contact name ready so NKU can begin negotiating as soon as your request lands. You file early with nothing missing, which gives each review portion what it needs on first look. If a preceptor has to step away later, we stay on call and find a successor who meets the same rules. Each approval is NKU's to give; our part is making sure nothing reaches NKU half-built. Read how it works or send your session dates through the contact page.