It’s a good time to go to nursing school in Utah. The nursing shortage continues to mushroom, which means plenty of job opportunities for nurses. If not at the busy metro hospitals then you can bet your bottom dollar rural nursing facilities have vacancies. In fact, rural healthcare is a major challenge facing Utah.
Practical Nursing and Associates in Nursing degree programs remain popular in Utah.
But the Associates degree programs, particularly at the community and technical colleges are not necessarily the speediest pathway to a nursing job in a hospital. Why? Because the ASN still accounts for two-thirds of all nursing licenses, these schools are overrun with eager prospective nurses looking for a bullet-proof career and a job they could actually love.
Consider BSN degrees as well as ASN and shop carefully for loan repayment, loan forgiveness, and nursing scholarship programs designed to help Utah students.
Utah has a lot of wide open spaces. Do you think healthcare delivery and nursing practice comes easy on the frontier? Rural nursing offers motivated RNs and LPNs opportunities and challenges they may not otherwise encounter in busy metro hospitals.
At the Masters level Advanced Practice RNs are made ready to service patient populations in all regions, rural and urban. Excellent job opportunities are available for Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives, Nurse Anesthetists, and Clinical Nurse Specialists in outlying communities where quality healthcare is scarce.
Metropolitan healthcare facilities continue to attract the majority of new nurse grads. Salt Lake City and Provo regions require thousands of nurses and the hospitals, including Level 1 Trauma Center University of Utah, appeal to new nurses. These hospitals offer dynamic and exciting practice opportunities, world-class physicians and research, a diverse patient population, and possibly unparalleled nursing benefits, including lucrative signing bonuses.
The Utah Health Care Workforce Financial Assistance Program provides loan repayment to nurses of all kinds. Eligible candidates are willing to exchange service in a medically underserved facility for educational loan repayment. Program availability is based on current state funding.
Search for other cash incentives through your nursing school, employer, or nursing association. Remember that some program availability fluctuates with economic conditions.
The Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing-Nursing is the resource you’ll use when looking for almost any official information regarding your nursing practice in the state, such as: