Opportunities at SWCTE: health science students are filling the gap

Health science careers surge as SWCTE students fill regional worker shortages

Sarah Mills | GlobalBeat

Southwest Career and Technical Education Center sent 47 health science graduates into the workforce this spring, easing a staffing crunch that has left rural clinics running on skeleton crews.

Every student who completed the two-year program in Dickinson, North Dakota passed state certification exams, principal Kyle Ernst told reporters. Local hospitals hired 19 of them before graduation ceremonies ended.

North Dakota faces a 14 percent vacancy rate for medical assistants and nursing aides, according to state labor data. Rural hospitals operate with one-third fewer lab techs than they need. The gaps force remaining staff into overtime cycles that fuel burnout and more departures.

“They’re ready on day one,” CHI St. Joseph’s nursing director Maria Flores said of the new hires. She signed four students to 12-month contracts last month. “These kids already know our Epic software, our supply chain, our patient mix.”

SWCTE launched its health science track in 2021 with 11 sophomores. Enrollment tripled after the first class posted 100 percent job placement, counselor Tasha Henke said. The program runs dual-credit courses through Bismarck State College, letting students earn certified nursing assistant and phlebotomy credentials before high school graduation.

State Representative Mike Lefor pushed a $1.2 million grant that paid for simulation mannequins and an ambulance bay inside the technical center. “We can’t keep poaching staff from each other,” Lefor said at a March budget hearing. “We have to grow our own.”

Students train in a 1,200-square-foot lab modeled after a three-bed rural emergency department. They practice inserting IVs into lifelike arms that cost $8,000 apiece. A $45,000 mannequin blinks, bleeds and gives birth. Instructors can program cardiac arrests or postpartum hemorrhages using an iPad.

Senior Caylee Peters delivered twins during a simulated emergency last winter. “The mannequin screamed, then stopped breathing,” she recalled. “I forgot it wasn’t real.” Peters starts full-time as a labor and delivery tech at Sanford Health next month, earning $24.50 an hour plus night-shift differential.

Rural hospitals helped design the curriculum. CHI St. Alexius requested extra training on blood cultures. Essentia Health wanted students comfortable with telestroke carts. ADN Electric donated a working x-ray room so students could practice positioning patients.

Program costs run about $6,000 per student, split between the state and local districts. Students pay $75 for scrubs and a stethoscope. The technical center offsets expenses by charging hospitals $18 an hour when students work clinical shifts, half the going rate for agency staff.

The model reversals a decade-old trend of rural high schools steering students toward four-year degrees. “We sold college as the only path,” Southwest Public Schools superintendent Jason Hornbacher said. “Then we wondered why our clinics closed.”

North Dakota could need 5,900 new health care support workers by 2028, according to a workforce report released in January. The state’s aging population drives demand. Patients over 65 use three times more lab services than younger groups. Rural counties lost 19 percent of their hospital beds since 2010 as facilities cut unprofitable services.

Katelyn Schauer, 18, plans to stay close to home after watching her grandmother drive 90 minutes for dialysis. “Someone has to stay,” she said. Schauer accepted a night-shift phlebotomy job at Sakakawea Medical Center starting at $21.80 an hour. She will bridge to an associate degree while working full-time.

Not every graduate sticks around. Three seniors took traveling tech jobs paying $3,200 weekly in Arizona and Texas. “We treat them like a farm team,” Ernst said. “Some will come back when the money isn’t everything.”

The program now draws inquiries from Montana and South Dakota districts. Officials from Wyoming toured the facility last month. Expansion plans include a veterinary technician track to serve ranch country.

Background

North Dakota’s rural hospital crisis accelerated after 2014 when oil prices crashed, cutting state revenue. Twelve critical-access facilities have closed since 2010. Remaining hospitals average 42 days to fill vacancies for lab technicians, compared with 28 days in urban counties, according to the North Dakota Hospital Association.

Federal data show health care support jobs will grow 14 percent nationwide this decade. Rural areas face steeper shortages because housing costs and school quality lag behind metro areas. Congress allocated $2.4 billion in 2025 for rural health workforce grants, but North Dakota received just $18 million of that pool.

What’s Next

SWCTE will double its health science intake to 100 students this fall after voters approved a $9.8 million bond in April. Construction starts in August on a 14-bed simulation hospital wing complete with an operating room and pharmacy. The first veterinary assistant cohort begins January 2027, aiming to place 25 graduates annually into vet clinics stretched thin by booming cattle herds.