Southwest Indiana preceptors for Ball State FNP students
Southwest Indiana is the far corner of the state from Muncie: Evansville is roughly 225 miles away, and nine of the region's twelve counties are nonmetro. Deaconess owns, manages or partners with most hospitals from Evansville to Jasper, Princeton, Washington and Tell City, so its NP student rules shape nearly every search here.
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Tell us your Ball State program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options in your community that fit your Ball State course.
Evansville, Jasper, Vincennes and a long rural stretch
Indiana Department of Health District 10 covers Knox, Daviess, Martin, Gibson, Pike, Dubois, Crawford, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, Spencer and Perry counties: 492,572 residents in 2025 by Census estimates, about 1.1% more than in 2020. Vanderburgh County holds 181,995 of them. Evansville (116,176) dwarfs the next cities, Jasper (17,279), Vincennes (16,378) and Washington (12,991).
Only Posey, Vanderburgh and Warrick form a metro area, Evansville's. Vincennes, Washington and Jasper are micropolitan, and Martin, Gibson, Pike, Crawford, Spencer and Perry counties lie outside any metro or micro area; USDA gives Martin County its most rural code.
From Muncie it is roughly 171 miles to Washington, 182 to Jasper, 194 to Vincennes, 225 to Evansville and 235 to Tell City. Budget a long day for the 8-hour session on campus in NUR 681, and remember Ball State's catalog leaves clinical travel costs to the student.
Deaconess: what its NP student pages require
Deaconess runs Midtown Hospital in Evansville, Gateway and three specialty hospitals in Newburgh, Deaconess Cross Pointe, Deaconess Gibson Hospital in Princeton (critical access) and Deaconess Memorial Medical Center in Jasper, the former Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center, renamed on August 1, 2025. Its Advanced Practice Provider Students pages set these terms:
- Eligibility: an RN license valid under the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, professional liability insurance through the school, US citizenship or permanent residence, and an active affiliation agreement between the NP program and Deaconess.
- Capacity: Deaconess may cap students and turn down requests, states that it is not pursuing new affiliations at present, and favors its own employees and students from local schools. It does not publish its list of affiliated NP schools.
- Application: the NP Student Application, a letter of introduction, a copy of your RN license and a CV of two pages at most, sent fresh every semester. The cutoffs: April 30 (fall), September 30 (spring), January 31 (summer).
- Preceptor: the NP application (revised June 2021) lets students approach preceptors on their own; Deaconess's Academic Coordinator then verifies every placement with both the preceptor and the practice manager, and helps students who arrive without one.
- Onboarding: Deaconess has the school's clinical coordinator submit each rotation request through myClinicalExchange, where students upload clearance documents.
Two points matter most. Settle the agreement question first: ask Ball State's Graduate Clinical Placement Coordinator whether one with Deaconess exists before you plan a semester around it (affiliation agreements). And the 2021 form's location list (Midtown, Gateway, Gibson, Cross Pointe, clinics and Henderson, Kentucky) leaves out Jasper, whose advanced practice nursing page points interested students to Memorial's recruiter.
Vincennes, Washington, Tell City and Boonville
Good Samaritan in Vincennes, an independent Knox County hospital, has an NP student application on its student page, according to an archived copy. Students register in myClinicalExchange to request placement and manage onboarding documents. Summer requests close January 31, fall requests March 31 and spring requests August 31, and notifications arrive about a month after each. It does not say whether an agreement or a student-found preceptor is required.
Daviess Community Hospital in Washington stays county-governed but moved its management agreement from Ascension St. Vincent to Deaconess in 2025. An archived copy of its education page lists what clinical rotation students email before starting, including an orientation handbook acknowledgment and quiz, a records form signed by the school, a confidentiality statement and immunization records; it has no NP-specific wording.
Perry County Memorial in Tell City, a county-owned Deaconess affiliate since 2023, Ascension St. Vincent Evansville and Ascension St. Vincent Warrick in Boonville publish no student-placement page.
Health centers and shortage scores
HRSA lists 43 sites for the Good Samaritan Family Health Center organization across Daviess, Knox, Martin and Pike counties. ECHO Community Health Care has four in Vanderburgh, Tulip Tree Family Health Care two in Gibson, LifeSpring Health Systems two in Dubois and Spencer, and Southern Indiana Community Health Care two in Crawford; SICHC also advertises multi-week NP rotations (two to four weeks or more) that include housing.
HRSA's September 2026 data name geographic primary care shortage areas in Martin County (score 16, the region's highest), Daviess, Spencer and the Orange and Crawford area (11 each), Pike (10) and Perry (9); Posey (11) and Gibson (8) are proposed for withdrawal. Low-income designations cover Knox (14) and Vanderburgh (13), and six rural health clinics hold facility designations, four of them Deaconess Clinic sites.
Course by course in the southwest
NUR 634,NUR 681andNUR 683: an adult-focused primary care preceptor at an ECHO or Family Health Center site or a private practice. Deaconess's form asks whether your preceptor is already confirmed.NUR 682: a preceptor who sees children; HRSA's facility list here includes a pediatric rural health clinic (NUR 682 guide).NUR 684: a women's health preceptor for 90 hours, confirmed before the Deaconess or Good Samaritan deadline if you apply there.NUR 673: 180 hours, usually a day and a half to two days on site each week, so in the rural counties a practice within a short drive matters (NUR 673 guide).NUR 672: educator and leadership students may complete it at their workplace with a master's- or doctoral-prepared RN supervising, while FNP students stay out of their own unit or clinic.
Why southwest Indiana students choose us
At Ball State the FNP student locates each preceptor, and faculty step in to support if a problem comes up (what Ball State asks). Our placement desk works that search across the region, from Evansville practices to the health centers of Knox, Martin and Crawford counties. We line each site up against Deaconess's and Good Samaritan's calendars, confirm the preceptor before any form goes in, then prepare the clinical packet paperwork and the agency's signature on Ball State's standard agreement one semester out, plus a backup site. Send us your course and town.
Questions Ball State students ask
Does Deaconess accept Ball State nurse practitioner students?
Deaconess does not publish its affiliated NP schools, and it is not seeking new school affiliations at present, so the answer depends on whether an agreement already exists. Ask Ball State's Graduate Clinical Placement Coordinator. If one does, you would still need Indiana-valid RN licensure, US citizenship or permanent residence, and an application by the semester deadline.
Can I contact a Deaconess preceptor myself?
Yes, according to Deaconess's NP application: a student may reach out to a preceptor directly, and the Academic Coordinator later checks the arrangement with that preceptor and the practice manager. IU Health's rule runs the other way and bars students from approaching its providers, so keep the two systems' rules apart.
Can I do Ball State clinical hours in Henderson, Kentucky?
In the MS in Nursing, Kentucky is authorized on Ball State's map, and Deaconess's NP form lists a Henderson location. The Post-Master's Certificate FNP and the DNP are not authorized in Kentucky, so certificate and DNP students keep their hours on the Indiana side. See state authorization and the Kentucky guide.
Does Daviess Community Hospital take NP students now that Deaconess manages it?
Nothing public says so. Deaconess has managed the hospital since 2025, but Daviess remains county-governed, and its news release said management is not ownership. Its archived education page covers rotation paperwork without mentioning NP students, and Deaconess's 2021 NP form lists no Washington location, so ask the hospital how it handles NP requests.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against Ball State's own catalog, graduate handbook, program pages and State Authorization Map, and Indiana rules. Your course faculty, your advisor and the Graduate Clinical Placement Coordinator have the final word.
Ball State asks you to find your preceptor. We find one near you.
Tell us your Ball State track, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course, confirm the practice will sign Ball State's affiliation agreement, and line up a backup, so the School of Nursing can clear the site before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NUR 682, women's health forNUR 684, adult primary care forNUR 681andNUR 683 - Outside your own unit or clinic, in a state where Ball State's program is authorized
- Across Indiana, from Muncie to Evansville, and in the other states Ball State accepts
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Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.