LISTEN: Dr. Bob Mayo’s interview with The Flag’s Steve Hallstrom
NORTH DAKOTA – Dr. Bob Mayo with North Dakota State University’s Challey Institute believes the Legislature can improve healthcare outcomes by putting more funding toward keeping medical students in the state after graduation.
North Dakota lawmakers are working on appropriating $199 million given by the One Big Beautiful Act for the state’s Rural Health Transformation Program during a special session. The law sends each state money to offset funding that will be lost by changing Medicaid requirements set to begin next year.
Mayo’s research published in June 2025 shows North Dakota ranks 37th out of 50 states doctor to patient ratio. He said the state is short between 260 and 360 doctors. That number could rise to 500 by 2040 if the population hits 800,000.
One thing Mayo believes could be improved in North Dakota is increasing the amount of residency slots per medical school graduate which he said the state is last in the country in. Mayo said North Dakota has 67 slots for medical school graduates to be trained as residents statewide. Only four of those slots are in rural medicine and none are for OBGYNs. Iowa is looking to add 460 residency slots this year.
“Doctors tend to stay and practice permanently wherever they finish their education because they start to put down roots,” Mayo said on “The Steve Hallstrom Show” on The Flag.
Mayo said people in rural areas, and even Fargo where he lives, are having trouble with specialty services. That includes his wife.
“Getting specialty care is like pulling teeth and we seriously considered ‘Do we have to move to Minneapolis, back to DC to be able to get medical care.’ I know people who have made that choice,” Mayo explained.
Mayo believes another thing the Legislature should consider to improve healthcare outcomes is to give pharmacists the ability to prescribe medications for non-serous conditions which has been done in Idaho in 2018.
“It dramatically improved the healthcare availability to people in rural communities because many small towns don’t have a doctor. Every one of them has a pharmacist,” Mayo said.
