Clinical placements in Augusta and the Central Savannah River Area
The 13 counties around the city of Augusta hold about half a million people, Augusta University's Health Sciences campus and Wellstar MCG Health, the university's academic health system. Home ground does not make a match automatic: each hospital runs its own student process, and eight rural counties lean on a small network of health centers.
Find a preceptor in the CSRA
Tell us your track, your next clinical course and where you live in the CSRA, and your placement advisor starts the search.
The CSRA in numbers: 13 counties around one metro core
Georgia's Central Savannah River Area Regional Commission groups Burke, Columbia, Glascock, Hancock, Jefferson, Jenkins, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Taliaferro, Warren, Washington and Wilkes counties: 501,509 residents in July 2025, up 2.6% on 2020. By our arithmetic, Richmond and Columbia hold three residents in four.
Augusta-Richmond County's consolidated city counts 201,999 people and Grovetown 17,939. Evans and Martinez are unincorporated, so the Census Bureau prints no figure for either. Sandersville, a town of about 5,400, lies roughly 65 driving miles from downtown Augusta. Eight counties are nonmetro under the USDA's 2023 codes, 71,601 people in all, while the metro counties continue over the river into Aiken and Edgefield, covered in the Midlands guide.
Wellstar MCG Health and the new Grovetown hospital
Wellstar MCG Health is the local name Augusta University Health System took when it joined Wellstar Health System on August 30, 2023. The Medical College of Georgia's surgery page describes its campus medical center as a 520-bed tertiary hospital and ACS-verified Level I trauma center, beside the 157-bed Wellstar Children's Hospital of Georgia. Wellstar Columbia County Medical Center, 100 beds in Grovetown, received its first patients on August 26, 2026, according to a Wellstar announcement.
Wellstar writes its student rules for all schools, and its ACEMAPP pages name none. NP applications close November 15 for a spring rotation, March 30 for summer and June 30 for fall, and Wellstar asks students to hold calls until decisions post. An applicant may arrive with a preceptor confirmed or register so Wellstar can help look for one. The listing for Wellstar MCG Health Ambulatory, on the campus, names AGACNP and both pediatric NP tracks among the programs it accepts.
Piedmont Augusta, Doctors Hospital and the Charlie Norwood VA
Piedmont Augusta, the former University Health Care System, joined Piedmont on March 1, 2022 (a date from a search summary of Piedmont's history page) and spans the downtown hospital, the Summerville Campus and Piedmont McDuffie in Thomson. Its size is disputed: 581 beds on the Medical College of Georgia's surgery page, 812 across two campuses in a Piedmont fact sheet found through search. Requests go through ACEMAPP in August, February and April, per an archived orientation page, and Piedmont's older 2021 guidelines say it assigns preceptors.
Doctors Hospital of Augusta, an HCA hospital, has no NP student page our research could locate. The Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center wants part one of trainee onboarding done 90 to 120 days before the start. The VA's spinal cord injury center lists the College of Nursing, with among the Augusta University training programs it is affiliated with; that page does not describe NP preceptorships.
Forty-four health center sites and the counties they reach
HRSA's September 2026 file lists 44 active health center service sites here, four school-based and four mobile vans. Neighborhood Improvement Project, Inc. runs 26 in Augusta, Evans, Keysville, Lincolnton, Thomson, Waynesboro and Wrens. Community Health Care Systems, Inc. covers the rural west and south with 11, in Crawfordville, Gibson, Sandersville, Sparta, Tennille, Wadley, Warrenton and Wrens. Christ Community Health Services Augusta has four sites in the city and East GA Healthcare Center three in Millen. Wilkes County has none.
For an FNP student, one health center can serve several courses, since its patients range from infants to older adults. Each site is confirmed before its name reaches your faculty.
Shortage designations, primary care and psychiatric
Every CSRA county is touched by an HRSA primary care shortage designation. Burke, Glascock, Hancock, Jefferson, Jenkins, Lincoln, Taliaferro and Warren are whole-county geographic shortage areas, and Hancock's score of 21 is the region's highest. Even the suburbs count: low-income residents of Richmond and south Columbia share a designation scored 18.
Psychiatric coverage is thinner. The Ogeechee Catchment Area, scored 18, spans Burke, Glascock, Jefferson and Jenkins, and a low-income designation tied to the Community Service Board of East Central Georgia, also 18, takes in Columbia, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Taliaferro, Warren and Wilkes. For you, that means busy primary care and pediatric panels, and PMHNP preceptors scarce in all 13 counties, so a psychiatric search should start first.
Matching each Augusta University track to the CSRA
| Track | Course | Where to search in the CSRA |
|---|---|---|
| DNP-FNP | NURS 8312: adults in primary care | Family and internal medicine practices in Evans, Martinez and Augusta; health center clinics |
| DNP-FNP | NURS 8315: infants, children and adolescents | Family practices with young patients; the four school-based sites |
| DNP-FNP | NURS 8318: older adults and families | Geriatric and primary care practices; small-town offices in Thomson and Waynesboro |
| DNP-AGACNP | NURS 8332 to NURS 8338 | Hospitalist, critical care and emergency teams in the city and Grovetown |
| DNP-PNP | NURS 8322 to NURS 8328 | Pediatric primary care offices; health center pediatrics |
| DNP-PMHNP | NURS 8342 to NURS 8348 | Community service board programs and psychiatric groups running child and adult groups |
| Every track | NURS 9192, 240 hours | One preceptor across the full scope of practice |
A CSRA address already meets Augusta University's two-state residence requirement for NP and certificate students, which rests on instructors reaching you, your preceptor and your clinical site; the Georgia and South Carolina rule quotes it. For the Georgia side, your RN license must be Georgia-issued or multistate, and whoever teaches you clinically must hold Georgia APRN authorization, as preceptor requirements explains.
Why CSRA students bring their search to us
However your course arranges its clinical experiences, a CSRA placement goes smoother when someone tracks Wellstar's deadlines, Piedmont's request months and the VA's long onboarding for you. Your placement advisor searches practices in Evans, Martinez and Grovetown, the health center networks and psychiatric groups, verifies that each preceptor is licensed and authorized in Georgia, and sends your faculty a complete file well before the term. How it works lays out each step.
Questions Augusta University students ask
Does living near the Health Sciences campus make a preceptor easier to find?
It shortens the trip for visiting faculty, but it changes nothing in a hospital's process: Wellstar, Piedmont and the VA apply the same deadlines and paperwork to every school's students. What proximity adds is choice, since Richmond and Columbia counties hold most of the region's practices.
Is the new Wellstar hospital in Grovetown taking NP students?
Wellstar Columbia County Medical Center opened to patients on August 26, 2026, and our research found no student page written for it. Wellstar's published NP route is its system-wide ACEMAPP application, but whether the Grovetown hospital uses that route has not been published, so your placement advisor checks before counting on it.
Can I live in Evans or Martinez and train across the river in South Carolina?
Augusta University's residence rule names both states, so a practice in North Augusta or Aiken sits inside the two-state area. At the river, the preceptor's paperwork changes: a South Carolina NP works under a physician practice agreement, not a Georgia protocol. Your RN license must be valid there too, which a multistate compact license should cover.
Where do CSRA PMHNP students find the group work their courses require?
In NURS 8345 and NURS 8348 you join a group for children or adolescents and a psychotherapy group for adults, alongside individual and peer supervision. Community service board programs and larger psychiatric practices in the city are natural places to ask, and it belongs in the first conversation with any preceptor who sees only individual patients.
Are there clinical options in the rural CSRA counties?
Yes. Community Health Care Systems runs 11 health center sites in towns such as Sandersville, Sparta and Warrenton, East GA Healthcare Center has three in Millen, and Neighborhood Improvement Project reaches Lincolnton, Keysville and Wrens. A student in the town of Washington, in Wilkes County, looks to neighboring counties, since Wilkes has no HRSA site.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Augusta University's own catalog, program plans, DNP handbook and program pages, and Georgia and South Carolina rules. Your course faculty and the College of Nursing have the final word.
Whatever your program arranges, we find the preceptor who fits.
Tell us your Augusta University track, where in Georgia or South Carolina you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and Augusta University's rules, and hand you everything your faculty and the site need, well before the semester.
- Adult, pediatric and older-adult preceptors for
NURS 8312toNURS 8318, acute care forNURS 8332toNURS 8338 - Pediatric primary care for the PNP courses and psychiatric preceptors for
NURS 8342toNURS 8348 - Across Georgia and South Carolina, from the CSRA to Savannah, Atlanta and Columbia
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