NUR 684: the PMHNP course where Bradley's sources split on 150 hours

Updated September 25, 2026 · Reviewed by the Bradley Preceptor placement team

At Bradley University, NUR 684 Advanced Psychiatric Interviewing and Differential Diagnosis opens the PMHNP clinical sequence with 150 hours. The 2026-27 catalog treats them as simulation run by a faculty practicum instructor, while Bradley's online PMHNP page places the same 150 hours at a facility under a clinical preceptor. Until your PMHNP clinical packet settles which reading applies, plan for both, and use this semester to secure your NUR 685 preceptor.

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150clinical simulation hours for NUR 684 in the 2026-27 catalog

5credits, up from 3 in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 catalogs

750PMHNP clinical hours across NUR 684 to NUR 687

Numbered steps. Use NUR 684 to lock in NUR 685: 1 Early in the term; 2 Before midterm; 3 Once the packet is in; 4 Late in the term. — Use NUR 684 to lock in NUR 685: 1 Early in the term; 2 Before midterm; 3 Once the packet is in; 4 Late in the term.

What the 2026-27 catalog says about NUR 684

The catalog lists NUR 684 as a 5-credit course that pairs theory in psychiatric interviewing and differential diagnosis with a practicum component. Its 150 hours are simulation, and the person guiding them is the practicum instructor, a faculty role rather than a preceptor out in the community.

You reach it once the advanced core is done: pathophysiology (BIO 526), health assessment (NUR 600) and pharmacology (NUR 651). Two companion courses run beside it as corequisites, NUR 680 on the PMHNP role and NUR 682 on psychopharmacology and neurophysiology. The PMHNP welcome site also lists UpToDate among the resources tied to NUR 684.

Bradley's PMHNP clinical sequence in the 2026-27 catalog
Course	Title	Credits	Hours
NUR 684	Advanced Psychiatric Interviewing and Differential Diagnosis	5	150 (simulation)
NUR 685	PMHNP Continuum of Care Across the Lifespan and Practicum I	6	200
NUR 686	PMHNP Continuum of Care Across the Lifespan and Practicum II	6	250
NUR 687	PMHNP Sub-Specialty Focus and Practicum III	4	150

Together these four produce the 750-hour figure for PMHNP students entering with a BSN or a master's. RN-entry students add NUR 407 for 800, and the BSN-to-DNP adds project hours on top; the clinical hours planner sets every track side by side.

Where Bradley's own sources disagree

Three Bradley documents describe NUR 684, and they do not line up. The catalog says simulation with the practicum instructor. The online PMHNP program page, as it read in September 2026, says 150 clinical hours at selected facilities with the clinical preceptor. And the Graduate Student Handbook's May 2026 revision lists NUR 684 first among the four courses its PMHNP Clinical Packet and Guidelines cover.

The course has also tripled in size. Two catalogs ago it was a 3-credit course with 50 simulated hours; the current edition makes it 5 credits and 150 hours, part of the PMHNP jump to 750 that our 750-hour change page traces course by course.

Bradley has posted no note reconciling the versions. For your cohort, the deciding voices are the packet behind your MyOnline login and the faculty teaching NUR 684, while your advisor can tell you which catalog edition your plan follows.

Get a written answer from course faculty on whether your NUR 684 section needs an approved preceptor: if it does, the packet deadline fell halfway through the previous semester.

If your hours are simulation

On the catalog reading, NUR 684 needs no outside site. The practicum instructor runs the simulated interviews and diagnostic work, and the hours count toward your 750 without a preceptor agreement or an agency contract.

That changes the preceptor math. The three courses after it carry 600 hours, all under a clinical preceptor in a mental health setting: 200 in NUR 685, 250 in NUR 686 and 150 in NUR 687. Those are the placements to secure, and the first of them is due sooner than most students expect.

How simulation time gets documented is a course-level detail. Typhon is where the handbook wants practicum time and patient encounters recorded, inside a week; your course faculty will tell you whether simulated hours are entered the same way. The Typhon page covers the logging rules.

If your section places you at a facility

If the packet or faculty treat NUR 684 the way the online page does, the course follows Bradley's usual path. You recruit a psychiatric preceptor, that preceptor signs the DocuSign packet, Bradley vets both the person and the site, and the site contract is finished ahead of the term.

Timing is the hard part. The welcome sites want packets in by the middle of the prior semester, so a NUR 684 preceptor would have to be chosen while you are still in the advanced core courses. For many entry points that is the first or second semester after admission.

Bradley has not published PMHNP-specific preceptor rules, such as whether a psychiatrist counts the same as a psychiatric NP. The general rules, which date from Bradley's 2017 preceptor webinar, are on our preceptor requirements page; your PMHNP packet holds the current version.

Use NUR 684 to lock in NUR 685

Whatever the answer on NUR 684, the NUR 685 preceptor runs on the same clock. Because NUR 684 is a prerequisite for it, a back-to-back plan puts the NUR 685 packet date right in the middle of your NUR 684 term.

Early in the termConfirm with course faculty how the 150 hours run, and find the NUR 685 packet date in MyOnline.
Before midtermGet a psychiatric prescriber to agree, then collect the credentials, liability proof and practice address the DocuSign packet calls for.
Once the packet is inWatch B-Mail for Bradley's decision and the agency agreement, and ask about Typhon access before the new term.
Late in the termStart sketching NUR 686 and the sub-specialty setting you want for NUR 687, the hardest PMHNP site to find.

See the preceptor packet page for each form the preceptor completes.

Why PMHNP students start with us during NUR 684

We are a placement service built around Bradley's own process, and NUR 684 is the natural point for our PMHNP work to begin. You tell us your city, your approved state and your next course; we search psychiatric practices, community mental health programs and inpatient units near you for preceptors who fit NUR 685 and the courses after it.

We gather everything the DocuSign packet needs before the deadline is close. Approval stays with Bradley, for every preceptor and every facility; our part is an early, fully assembled packet built around a preceptor who has already said yes.

We also plan the whole PMHNP run at once, so the NUR 687 sub-specialty site is being lined up while you are still logging NUR 686 hours, and we stay on call if a preceptor steps away. The how it works page shows the full process, and the form below starts it.

Questions Bradley students ask

Do I need a preceptor for NUR 684 at Bradley?

By the 2026-27 catalog, no: the hours are simulated and faculty-led. Bradley's online PMHNP page describes facility hours with a preceptor, though, and the handbook includes NUR 684 in the PMHNP clinical packet. Ask your course faculty or check the packet in MyOnline a full semester ahead.

Why did NUR 684 grow from 50 to 150 hours?

It changed with the 2026-27 catalog, the same edition that lifted PMHNP clinical hours to 750 and trimmed NUR 680 to a single credit; the two prior editions had NUR 684 at 3 credits and 50 simulated hours. Bradley has not given a reason, and your advisor can say which edition governs you.

What do I take at the same time as NUR 684?

The catalog pairs it with two corequisites, NUR 680 and NUR 682, the PMHNP role course and the psychopharmacology course. The pathophysiology, assessment and pharmacology core comes first. The plan of study posted in MyOnline gives the exact semester for your entry point.

Is there a campus visit for Bradley PMHNP students?

Not that Bradley has announced. The PMHNP marketing page promises study without a campus residency, and no PMHNP bootcamp appears anywhere in the current catalog. The FNP track has an October bootcamp in Peoria and the adult-gerontology tracks now require an on-site skills bootcamp, so PMHNP stands apart.

Does NUR 684 count toward the 1,000 hours in the BSN-to-DNP PMHNP?

Yes, as part of the 750 specialty hours. The doctoral PMHNP then relies on the four project courses to reach its 1,000-hour minimum, and because they carry 300 hours between them, the listed courses actually total 1,050. See the DNP project hours page on that gap.

PMHNPNUR 685 PMHNP Practicum INUR 685 is the first Bradley PMHNP course with a clinical preceptor: 200 hours in psychiatric care, with the DocuSign packet due by midterm the term before.PMHNPMSN PMHNPBradley University's online MSN PMHNP: a 150-hour simulation course, three psychiatric practicums, the move to 750 hours and finding mental health preceptors.HoursThe 600 to 750 hour changeWhy Bradley's 2026-27 catalog lifted PMHNP and adult-gerontology NP hours from 600 to 750, which courses gained them, and the FNP 700 vs 750 question.FormPreceptor packetThe Bradley University preceptor packet: each track's clinical packet, DocuSign submission, the midterm deadline, and what your preceptor signs and sends.HoursClinical hours by programClinical hours for each Bradley University nursing program: catalog totals, online-page figures, where they differ, and the rules that decide which hours count.

Last checked 2026-09-25

We check these pages against Bradley's own catalog, online program pages and Graduate Student Handbook. Your clinical packet, course faculty and academic advisor have the final word.

Bradley lets you choose your preceptors. We find the ones worth choosing.

Tell us your Bradley track, your city and your next practicum course. We line up preceptors who fit the NUR course and gather the license, CV and malpractice details the DocuSign packet asks for, well before the midterm of the semester before you start.

Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP and AGPCNP, acute care teams for AGACNP, mental health settings for PMHNP
Preceptor license, CV, malpractice coverage and the site address ready for the packet
Every practicum in your sequence planned together, close to home in your approved state

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