Part Two of Nurse Practitioner Steven Barlow's Story: Serving Rural Populations Far Apart

Steven Barlow experienced the wealth of opportunities available on the 3RNET job search when he opened his resume up to clinics and network coordinators throughout the country. After interviewing with several different facilities, he made the decision to move to North Dakota because of Stacy Kusler. 

Kusler, 3RNET’s Network Coordinator for North Dakota, connected Barlow with the Aurora Clinic in Grand Forks. “She’s just phenomenal,” Barlow said of Kusler. “What the Aurora Clinic was doing at the time really fit what I was interested in.” 

This match is exactly the kind of connection 3RNET Network Coordinators seek to make - linking job seekers with rural and underserved employers in their states. They are an unbiased resource that serve the health care safety net in their state, working with many employers and living in the communities they serve. 

The job Kusler was able to connect Barlow with provided him with the opportunity to draw on his breadth of experience with less strings attached than the opportunities he saw being offered to those around him. 

“If you can think of it, I’ve probably done it, with the exception of Labor and Delivery and the OR,” Barlow said. “Here was the opportunity to do an outpatient clinic, emergency room, in patient medicine - and really function more independently than any of my classmates had the opportunity to do.” 

Many of his classmates were being offered part-time positions in crowded clinics, “just grinding out the days looking for something to develop.” 

Though he had seen many nurse practitioners with phenomenal careers, it often took a lot of patience, persistence, and great timing when it came down to it. 

“I was blessed with this opportunity to really jump into the deep end of the pool and go for it,” he said. 

Beyond job placement, Kusler was able to aid in the coordination of moving Barlow and his family to the area, as well as helping his family learn what a day in the life of a North Dakotan looks like. She organized everything from a realtor to suggestions for family activities, making their transition smooth. 

“The best thing about Stacy,” Barlow said, “is just having a person to bounce ideas off of, and have that constant resource of an extremely competent person who is highly organized, very effective, and communicates well - you can’t ask for anything better than that.” 

Though Barlow loved his position in North Dakota, his wife had grown tired of the severe winters. 

“So I went back to 3RNET,” he said. “It’s very user-friendly. I was never a computer person and it is something that is very straightforward…i.e. What job am I looking for? What area am I looking for? And what part of the country am I looking at?” 

This time, he was looking for an opportunity away from the harsh North Dakota winters that still offered fulfilling practice opportunities. Connecting with another Network Coordinator, Barlow found himself moving his family to the furthest place they could go and still be within the United States…Saipan!

Check back for the final installment in this series, detailing Barlow’s shift from North Dakota to the Northern Mariana Islands and how one community just wasn’t willing to lose him.