HCS 255: Health Sciences Clinical Preceptorship

This culminating course serves as both the capstone and supervised clinical preceptorship for the Medical Assisting Certificate. Students complete 240 hours of unpaid clinical experience in affiliated healthcare settings, integrating and demonstrating the knowledge, skills, and professional behaviors developed throughout the program while meeting clinical experience requirements for applicable certification pathways. Under the guidance of qualified preceptors, students' progress from supported participation to increasing independence in clinical responsibilities. Students engage in a medical assisting preceptorship, and an embedded short phlebotomy preceptorship, which includes applied phlebotomy practice to strengthen venipuncture technique, specimen handling, and adherence to pre-analytical and infection control standards in authentic clinical environments. As the program’s capstone experience, this course emphasizes clinical judgment, interprofessional collaboration, patient-centered communication, and professional readiness to support students’ preparation for applicable medical assisting and phlebotomy certification pathways.