Background check and drug screen for GW clinicals
Before any clinical course, GW Nursing requires a criminal background check and a drug screen through its preferred vendor, and GW's checklist wants both done within 18 months so they cover your entire clinical period. Graduate students order them as a Complio package, and some clinical sites then run checks of their own.
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Tell us your GW program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your GW course.
The rule behind the screening
GW's Bulletin sets the requirement in its conditional admission rules: "Students enrolled in clinical-based programs must complete a criminal background check and drug screen prior to enrollment in a clinical course." The same passage says both go through GW Nursing's "preferred third-party vendor."
For graduate students that vendor is American DataBank's Complio, which GW names as its tool for background checks, drug screens and immunization tracking. The Pre-Clinical Requirements Checklist adds the timing: each result must be dated within the past 18 months and must cover the whole clinical period. You buy the screening package alongside the immunization tracker; the Complio requirements page covers that order and GW's four-month limit on buying early.
Making 18 months cover your clinical run
The checklist ties the 18 months to your entire clinical period, not just your first term. The check you order before your first rotation has to stay inside that window through the last one, so the length of your clinical run matters as much as the order date.
| Plan | First clinical course and term | Last clinical term |
|---|---|---|
| MSN FNP, full-time, fall entry | NURS 6230, year 1 summer | Year 2 spring |
| MSN AGACNP, part-time, fall entry | NURS 6235, year 2 summer | Year 3 spring |
| MSN PMHNP, part-time, fall entry | NURS 6245, year 2 fall | Year 3 fall (NURS 6248) |
| Post-BSN DNP FNP, part-time | NURS 6230, year 3 summer | Year 4 spring |
| Post-master's AGACNP certificate, summer entry | NURS 6235, summer | The following spring |
Most three-term runs fit comfortably. Longer runs are tighter: a PMHNP plan that spreads five clinical courses from one fall to the next, plus the months between ordering and your first shift, can push the final clinical day close to or past 18 months. A delayed course or an incomplete has the same effect. If your run is long, ask the Clinical Placement Team whether GW expects a repeat before your final term, and find your own sequence on the first clinical semester guide.
What the check and the screen include
GW's current pages name the requirement without itemizing the searches. GW's 2021 clinical placement guide gave more detail: the background check included Patriot Act and local criminal record searches among others, and the drug test was a 10-panel screen, both run through Complio. Current rules may differ, so read the package description before you pay.
Place the order at gwucompliance.com, the site GW's Compliance and Clinical page names, and follow the Student Guide to Complio on GW's Forms page. Results then sit in the same account as your immunizations and certifications, where GW's compliance review looks for them.
Undergraduates follow a separate path. Accelerated and Veterans BSN students complete their screening through CastleBranch, purchased by invitation after the first semester starts. Online graduate students, including post-master's certificate students who often begin clinicals in their first term, use Complio.
What a positive result can mean
GW's 2021 clinical placement guide states that a positive result "may be grounds for denial of rotation by the clinical site or dismissal." Two parties can act on it: the site, which can decline to host you, and GW, which can end your place in the program. The guide says "may," not "will," and GW's public pages describe no fixed outcome or appeal route.
The Bulletin's technical standards point the same way. Students must be able to meet every requirement in the clinical affiliation agreements plus any additional requirement of a clinical setting, so a site's own standard for screening results binds you as firmly as GW's does.
If you know something may appear on a report, raise it early with the Clinical Placement Team or your program director. Learning where a site stands before the request goes in is far better than learning it at onboarding.
Sites that screen again
Passing GW's screen does not always finish the job. Clearance under GW's 2021 guide requires any site and state requirements to be met, and the 2026 CORE workshop lists Site Onboarding as the last step before your clearance notice. That step is where a hospital or practice can ask for its own background check, drug test, badge paperwork or orientation.
GW has posted system-specific screening pages before, for Inova, HCA, Children's National and Virginia Hospital Center facilities, written during the 2020 pandemic. They are dated, but they show how a large system layers its own rules on top of GW's. The 2021 guide also says the cost of extra site requirements falls on the student.
Ask each prospective site early what its onboarding involves, and budget days as well as money for it.
Where screening fits in clearance
Your screening results feed the Student Compliance step of GW's review, which follows program director approval, the affiliation agreement and placement confirmation. Clearance needs every step finished, and no hour counts before both the term's first day and your clearance notice.
Walk through the full sequence on the clinical clearance page, and see the placement process guide for how a request reaches review in the first place.
Why GW students choose us
When we line up a preceptor and site for you, we ask the site what its onboarding requires and pass those extras to you with the placement, so a hospital's own screening shows up on your calendar early instead of the week before term. Alongside that, we collect your preceptor's credentials and CV plus the name of whoever signs contracts for the site, so the program director sees a complete Site Prospector entry.
If your clinical run is long enough that screening dates matter, your placement advisor plans the search around them. Start at how it works, or tell us your program and first clinical term on the contact page.
Questions GW students ask
Can I use a background check my employer already ran?
GW's Bulletin requires the check and screen through GW Nursing's preferred vendor, and the Student Guide to Complio shows how to order GW's own package. GW's published rules do not mention an employer's report as a substitute. Plan on ordering through Complio, and ask the Clinical Placement Team if you think your situation is different.
How many panels is the GW Nursing drug screen?
GW's 2021 clinical placement guide described a 10-panel drug screen ordered through Complio. GW's current pages do not restate the panel count, and current rules may differ. The package description at gwucompliance.com shows what you are buying, and a clinical site may run its own test during onboarding.
Will I have to repeat the background check before graduation?
Only if your clinical period outruns the 18-month window or a site asks for its own. GW's checklist says the check must cover the whole clinical period, so a long part-time run, a delayed course or an incomplete can make a second order necessary. The Clinical Placement Team can tell you whether yours does.
When should I order the background check and drug screen?
Inside the four months before your first clinical term, as part of your Complio purchase, since GW limits how early you can buy the account. Ordering near the start of that window leaves time for results to post, for the 1–3 business day document reviews and for any follow-up before GW's Student Compliance step.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-24
We check these pages against GW's Bulletin and GW Nursing's own program and clinical pages. Your course, CORE and GW's Clinical Placement Team have the final word.
GW asks you to find your own site and preceptor. Hand that search to us.
Tell us your GW program, where you live and which clinical course is next. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the license, bio and site details GW's review asks for, so your Site Prospector goes in complete.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family practice for
NURS 6230toNURS 6232, older-adult primary care for AGPCNP, psychiatric care for PMHNP - License, bio or CV and the site's agreement signatory ready for your CORE submission
- Close to home, in DC, Maryland, Virginia or wherever you live and hold your RN license
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