Medatrax at APU: weekly hour logs that hold up

What Medatrax does in APU's clinical courses

Medatrax is the system APU's graduate guidelines name for clinical documentation: the running record of the hours you complete with a preceptor. The GNRS 600 course description, for example, has student NPs log their hours as they go, and those entries are what APU counts toward your program total.

Three APU documents point to it. The 2023-24 MSN Advanced Practice guidelines set the weekly rule for the NP and CNS tracks. The 2025-26 guidelines for the Healthcare Administration and Leadership practicum repeat that rule, which shows it is still current. And the APU library's course guide for the Oncology NP fellowship lists Medatrax as a required resource.

Medatrax holds hours, not compliance paperwork. Your immunizations, license and training certificates live in CastleBranch, or Complio at San Diego, and your coursework lives in Canvas; the student systems page shows where each task belongs.

The weekly logging rule

APU's guidelines ask you to document clinical hours in Medatrax weekly, and they warn that failing to do so can lead to an academic warning. The rule sits in APU's recent APRN guidelines (the 2023-24 edition) and again in the 2025-26 leadership practicum guidelines; the handbook now in force, which needs an APU sign-in, governs your cohort.

The weekly rhythm fits APU's wider rotation rules. Hours may not be front-loaded or back-loaded, so a log that shows a steady pace week after week is exactly what faculty expect to see. A burst of entries in the last two weeks of a term tells a different story, even when every hour was real. The rotation rules page covers the pacing limits in full.

APU's public documents do not name the weekday or time an entry is due. Your course syllabus and clinical faculty set that, so ask in the first week of the term and put the deadline in your calendar.

Hours that come off the log

Some hours never count, however carefully you record them. APU's recent guidelines list the situations, and each one traces back to something that happened before or during the rotation rather than to the entry itself.

The first row is the easiest one to trip over. A preceptor may be ready and the clinic may welcome you, but until APU's placement team clears the site in writing, any shift there sits outside the program.

Your first entry starts with clearance

1. Secure the preceptorConfirm the preceptor and collect the practice's exact legal name, the person who signs contracts for it, and a way to reach the office manager.
2. Submit the requestFile APU's Graduate Preceptor Request form, one per preceptor, so the Graduate Placement Team can review the placement.
3. Wait for the agreement and approvalThe site needs an APU affiliation agreement, and the placement coordinator must tell you in writing that the site is cleared.
4. Finish facility onboardingComplete whatever the site itself requires, alongside your CastleBranch or Complio items.
5. Work the first shift, then log itYour first Medatrax entry belongs to the first week after clearance, at the site and with the preceptor APU approved.

Each new preceptor restarts this sequence. If you add a second site mid-term, its hours only count once that site has its own written clearance.

A weekly routine that keeps the log clean

Habits that keep every entry countable:

• Jot down the date, site and hours at the end of each clinical day, then enter the week in Medatrax before your course deadline
• Check that each entry names the site and preceptor APU cleared, not a colleague who covered for a day
• Keep a separate tally for any required share, such as the FNP's 135 pediatric hours, so you know what remains
• Compare your weekly pace with the units you registered for, since every clinical unit works out to 45 hours
• Stop logging during any pause your faculty order, and write down the date it began
• Check your running total against your program's figure on the clinical hours page each month

None of this takes long when it happens weekly. It becomes hard only when a month of shifts has to be rebuilt from memory.

Warnings, appeals and where the log leads

If a warning does arrive, APU's recent guidelines set the order for challenging a clinical faculty member's warning or failing grade: first the lead faculty, then the department chair or assistant chair, then the dean, and after that the catalog's grievance process. Grades, probation and repeats have their own page, graduate grades and probation.

A complete log also opens later steps. For NP students, the guidelines open a clinical portfolio once completed hours land in the 540-765 band. The preceptor email on your request form is where APU sends the end-of-semester evaluation, covered on the evaluations and OSCEs page.

If a site falls through mid-term and no replacement can be found, the guidelines allow a clinical incomplete, with the didactic work continuing under faculty supervision until the hours are finished.

How we protect your Medatrax record

A clean log starts with a placement that counts from the first shift, and that is where APU students choose us. We find preceptors near home in Southern California whose schedules support a steady weekly load, and we prepare the request details so APU's placement team can clear the site before your term's pace begins.

Written clearance is APU's decision. We handle everything that feeds it, so the request lands with the team complete and in line with APU's rules, and the shifts you go on to log sit at a site the team has already approved. If a preceptor leaves partway through, we begin the replacement search at once to keep empty weeks off your record. Tell us where your hours stand using the form below.

Questions APU students ask