Becoming a licensed nurse or midwife in Liberia

Medical and health education in Liberia

Liberia's health workforce is among the smallest per head in the world, shaped by civil war and then by the 2014 to 2016 Ebola epidemic. The A. M. Dogliotti College of Medicine at the University of Liberia is the country's main medical school. It awards the MD and graduates a small cohort each year compared with the need. Nurses and midwives train at a larger number of institutions, including public and mission schools; several are community-health focused and produce physician assistants, nurse aides and certified midwives alongside registered nurses.

Instruction is in English. Because the school pool is small, there is no sprawling market of offshore schools as in the eastern Caribbean. The reverse is more common: Liberians study abroad, in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Cuba and elsewhere, and return to find that a foreign diploma needs to be recognised by the relevant board.

Graduation and registration are linked through the boards. A nursing or midwifery graduate cannot simply start work with a school certificate; the LBNM licensure exam is the step that turns a graduate into a licensed practitioner. For medical graduates, registration runs through the medical regulator after the internship year, and we did not find a separate national MCQ test for them.

The nurse and midwife licensure exam

This is the page's centre of gravity, because it is the one Liberian licensing exam we can place with confidence. The LBNM State Board Examination is taken by nursing and midwifery graduates from all Liberian schools. Press coverage from 2012 describes a written examination over two days, and Ministry of Health news items describe a newer digital online licensing system. We did not find a published blueprint, a current pass mark or recent candidate numbers.

What that means for you:

• Expect a written exam in English that covers the whole programme, not a narrow clinical skills check.
• Expect the delivery method to differ by year. Ask whether your sitting is paper-based or online.
• Ask the board whether midwifery graduates sit a separate midwifery paper or a combined one.

1. Confirm eligibility with the LBNM: school recognition, completed clinical hours, and graduation documents.
2. Register for the next State Board sitting and keep the receipt for the fee.
3. Prepare across the full programme: adult nursing, maternal and child health, community health, mental health, pharmacology and professional ethics.
4. Sit the exam, then apply for the licence once results are published.

Priorities for study in a high-burden setting

Liberian clinical practice is built around conditions that dominate district care: malaria, acute respiratory infection, diarrhoeal disease and malnutrition in children, complications of pregnancy and delivery, tuberculosis, HIV and sickle cell disease. Infection prevention and control carries particular weight since Ebola, and questions on isolation, personal protective equipment and outbreak reporting should not surprise you. Medication safety, dose calculation for children and the safe use of oxytocics and magnesium sulphate are recurring themes in maternity care.

If you trained in a language other than English, give time to the English terms used in Liberian guidelines, which borrow from WHO documents.

Pharmacists

The Liberia Pharmacy Board regulates pharmacists. Our data refers to a pharmacy board licensing exam, but its format is unknown and the entry is unverified. A pharmacy graduate should write to the board to ask whether the exam applies to them, what it covers and when it is held. The same applies to foreign-trained pharmacists, who may face credential verification before any exam.

Doctors, dentists and physiotherapists

For doctors we found no confirmed national licensing exam. The route is the medical degree, the internship, and registration with the medical regulator. A doctor trained abroad should expect document verification, and possibly an assessment; confirm this in writing. Dentists and physiotherapists are not covered by a confirmed exam in our data, and registration rests on a recognised qualification.

Practical planning for a small licensing system

In a small system, process matters as much as content. Offices are few, staff are stretched, and an application that is missing a single document can wait for months. A few habits save time.

• Keep certified copies of your school certificate, transcript and clinical record book, and scan each one.
• Ask the board for a written confirmation of the sitting date and venue, not only a verbal one.
• Check whether you must register in person, since online systems are still being introduced and not every step has moved onto them.
• Budget for the exam fee, travel to the examination centre and the annual renewal of your licence.

Because the exam has been described in press as moving online, ask also about technical requirements: the type of device, whether the venue provides it, and what happens if the system fails during the sitting. These are fair questions to put to the board, and the answers reduce the chance of a surprise on the day.

Exam comparison

Language and recognition

English is the working language. Liberian English and many local languages are spoken with patients, and a good grasp of plain-language explanation helps in the clinical stations of any exam. Recognition of foreign degrees is by the board concerned, so the first step is always a letter to the registrar with your documents. Liberia is a member of ECOWAS, but we found no regional agreement under which a licence from a neighbouring state is accepted automatically.

Liberian-trained clinicians who plan to work abroad should treat the LBNM licence as a domestic credential. International routes, such as the NCLEX for the United States, are separate processes with their own eligibility rules.

Last reviewed October 2026