While you’re kvetching over which nursing school to choose, North Dakota healthcare decision makers are trying to wrestle a number of challenges facing contemporary nursing within the state. First, North Dakota has a population much smaller and much more spread out than that of most other states and a larger percentage are older than the national average. Aging populations put more strain on healthcare systems and siphon more intensive services. Second, many younger nurses and prospective nurses pursue degrees and jobs outside the state, which counteracts healthcare stability particularly during shortages.
The majority of nurses often go to work in hospitals and in the metro areas, such as Fargo and Bismarck. But the state is chock full of smaller communities and nursing job opps at community hospitals, medical centers, community health clinics, nursing homes, urgent care centers and more. For Advanced Practice Nurses like Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives and Certified Registered Nurses of Anesthesia, opportunities are quite plentiful in the remote or frontier areas of the state. Without primary healthcare personnel such as these that are licensed to practice independently of physicians, most folks would have little care, period.
The North Dakota Board of Nursing is the number one source for all information related to the practice of nursing in ND. Look to this resource for the following: