DNP vs PhD vs Post-Masters Cert Education??

[smo153]

Hi guys,

I am a fairly new FNP with my MSN, with a little over a year of experience so far. My end goal is to open a Family Practice one day, however, that would be further down the line of course when I have years more of experience under my belt. However, I was thinking about adding on a part-time nursing faculty teaching job and wanted to see what the best course of action would be to obtain a job like this. I don't have any teaching experience and don't really want to teach clinicals, but rather would teach didactic courses online while working full time as an FNP. So with my MSN-FNP already, do I go for a DNP, post-masters certification in nursing education, or a PhD?? Any advice/guidance would be appreciated!

[djmatte, ADN, MSN, RN, NP]

DNP would be most appropriate of your plan is to teach fnp level students. PhD would be more appropriate if there's a research area you want to focus and a nursing education degree can be broader in scope, but is more focused on clinical nursing than advance practice.

[NICUmiiki, DNP, NP]

All of my professors and instructors are doctorate level. The schools around me don't seem to care whether it's a DNP or PhD. There are a few MSN prepared instructors but they only work with undergraduates in clinical/lab. As your already a practicing APRN, DNP would be more aligned to you.

[llg, PhD, RN]

It depends on the school you want to teach for. I do the type of work you are talking about. I work a "day job" at a hospital doing Nursing Professional Development ... and teach 1 course per semester online for a local university. I got the job through the contacts I had made through my hospital job. I heard that the school was looking for some additional adjunct faculty members to teach online and was given the name of the person to contact if I was interest. I had an interview, gave them my curriculum vitae, and was hired. About half of us who work for this university as adjuncts teaching some of their online courses have doctoral degress. The rest just have MSN's. (For their full time faculty, almost everyone has either a DNP or PhD.) But that is just for their undergraduate program. All graduate faculty have doctorates.

So if you know a few schools that you might like to teach for, find out what their hiring preferences are. They will probably want some teaching experience. That may be more important than any academic degree. If the students will be undergraduate, the post-master's certificate may well be all you need. If you want to teach graduate students, you'll probably need a doctorate of some kind. It really depends heavily on the type of school you want to work for and the type of student you want to teach.

Looking long term ... you'll need the doctorate to teach. Once again, the best specific doctoral program for you depends on your specific goals. Given your career goals of running a practice, the DNP would probably be best for you.