Educational Affairs - Office of Clinical Education

Student-Created Preceptor Sites

Every student has the opportunity to find his/her own preceptor for the ambulatory/outpatient portion of the 3rd primary care clerkships (FM, PEDI and OBGYN). This page describes the rules and policies for finding your own community-based teaching physician (preceptor).

You need to think months ahead when finding your own preceptor. This is not something you can do the week before your course begins. Student-created sites must be established 8 weeks prior to the start of the course, so always think ahead if you want to find your own preceptor site.

Preceptor Qualifications

  • Preceptors must be in Texas and have an active license to work in Texas
  • Preceptor must be board-certified in the discipline of the course
  • Preceptors cannot be related to you in any way
  • For more information on preceptor qualifications, check the Community-Based Courses section of our website

Rules for finding your own preceptor

Note: For the 3rd Year FM Clerkship, the rules for finding your own preceptor are a little different than for the other courses that require community-based preceptors. Please find rules specific to this course on the FM Clerkship website.

The following rules do apply when finding your own preceptor for the 3rd year PEDI Clerkship and the 3rd year OBGYN Clerkship.

  1. Do not speak to any potential preceptors until you have talked to your course coordinator about the doctor. The course coordinator will make sure they qualify to teach for UTMB before you will be allowed to make contact with the physician.
  2. You cannot ask for a community-based physician's teaching time if they already teach for UTMB. If UTMB placed you with a particular physician in the past and you want to work with the same physician again, please put the doctor's name in one of the text boxes when filling out yoursite preferences.  We can't guarantee that you will get that placement, but we can guarantee that we will ask the doctor if they are willing to be your preceptor again.
  3. When filling out your ambulatory site preferences, please select the 'student-created' option when making your site selections and identify the doctor you plan to speak to about being your preceptor. The course coordinator will then check out the physician you listed and let you know whether or not they qualify to be a UTMB preceptor. You may then speak to the physician about being your preceptor.
  4. Preceptors must be in Texas
  5. Preceptor must be board-certified in the discipline of the course
  6. Physician must be full-time and see at least 15 patients per day in an ambulatory setting.
  7. Preceptors cannot be related to you in any way.
  8. Preceptors must work in an ambulatory/outpatient setting. This means you can't ask a physician to be your preceptor if they are a hospitalist or work in a hospital. They must work with ambulatory patients.

You need to think months ahead when finding your own preceptor. This is not something you can do the week before your course begins. Student-created sites must be established 8 weeks prior to the start of your course, so always think ahead if you want to find your own preceptor site. There also may be credentialing paperwork to process before the community site allows you entry.

Student-Created Preceptor Forms

When finding your own preceptor, the physician must fill out a form to prove their commitment to being your preceptor. These form must be turned in 8 weeks prior to the start of your course so we know you have a secured location for the community-based ambulatory portion of your courses. Return the form to the appropriate course coordinator.

  1. 3rd Year Pediatric Clerkship Form (Doc)

If you have any questions regarding the process of finding your own preceptor, please contact Brian Sullivan for more information.