Broe began her career at Otto Møller's Birth Clinic but, encouraged by Munck, she shortly afterwards took a job as a private nurse with an English family who lived in
Morocco. She then worked as a private nurse in Paris and later in the Netherlands. In 1930, she studied and worked at the
East Harlem Nursing and Health Service and
New York City's
Presbyterian Hospital, but had to return to Denmark to care for her father who was ailing. She became head of the briefly and then began working at the Central Tuberculosis Center in Copenhagen. In 1933, Broe became the head nurse at Sundby Hospotal, which had just opened in the Copenhagen district of
Sundby, serving there until 1938. During her tenure she helped establish a continuing education curriculum for nurses to help reduce
infant mortality. The work was influential and allowed her to take a leave of absence and study nursing organization and administration at
Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City during the 1936-1937 term, along with Elisabeth Larsen and Ellen Margrethe Schrøder. The curriculum also spurred the adoption of legislation in 1937, titled the
Law on Control of Morbidity and Mortality to establish standards. The National Board of Health created guidelines for teaching nurses at
Aarhus University, the leading trainer of nurses until the Danish Nursing School opened in 1938. Simultaneously, Broe became involved with the
Danish Nurses Organisation (). Between 1934 and 1935, she served on the Committee for Additional Training and from 1934 to 1950, worked among others on the Building Committee. From 1938, Broe served on DSR's Teaching Committee and was its chair between 1943 and 1946. The committee task was to propose minimum curriculum for nursing students along with basic educational prerequisites. When Broe returned from study in New York in 1938, she was hired as training manager for the new program offered at Aarhus University to train nurses and senior nurses. It was a twelve-year appointment, marked with three
sabbaticals. Broe joined the Danish Florence Nightingale Committee and the Nurses' Cooperative of Nordic Countries () in 1940 and increasingly sought international cooperation in developing nursing standards. Between April and May 1945, Broe worked at the
Padborg Quarantine Station set up by the Danish Red Cross. The
rescue mission was an evacuation of sick prisoners from the
Neuengamme concentration camp in
Germany to Denmark. After arriving at one of three quarantine stations, the prisoners were bathed, fed, hydrated and given basic medical aid. After a night of stabilization, all evacuees proceed to Sweden where their care continued until Germany‘s unconditional surrender. In 1947, Broe joined the
International Council of Nurses (ICN) and took a leave to study abroad, first at Columbia's Teachers College again and then at the
University of Toronto. She went abroad again to study in 1950 at the
University of Chicago. In 1951, Broe was appointed as director of the ICN's Education Department at the Florence Nightingale International Foundation (FNIF) of
London. Under her direction, the FNIF prepared reports on the range of nursing education at various levels. She visited numerous countries to study their systems and provided advice to enhance their training of nurses, as well as participating in negotiations with authorities. Her travels led her to Australia, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan and several European countries. She spearheaded planning and led two international conferences in nursing research: the
Sèvres, France, conference of 1956 and the
New Delhi, India, conference in 1960. The goal of her work was to guide international nursing organizations to enhance training and education, especially in developing nations. Her work was recognized when she was honored with the
Florence Nightingale Medal in 1961. In 1962, Broe resigned from the ICN and returned to Denmark for a rest. Beginning in 1963, she became a nursing consultant for the Danish Red Cross and led an effort to recruit staff for a Danish hospital which was being built in
Zaire. She retired in 1971 and received the Pro Humanitate Medal from the organization. In her retirement, Broe helped found the Senior Association for Nurses, which joined the DSR in 1982. ==Legacy and death==