MSN+PhD or DNP only?

Depends on what and where you want to teach. If your into teaching clinically then a DNP is good. Some universities will only give tenure to PhDs. Also, DNPs will become more common because they take less time to get for clinicians. A PhD would make you more competitive in university settings. Both are great degrees. Ask people who work at a university where you might work.

I think it will vary by school. At Duke the only thing a DNP vs PhD would prevent you from achieving is perhaps being the Dean. There is at least one department head who is a DNP, with more to come. Tenure track is available to DNP faculty and DNPs teach PhD level courses. They are seen as equivalent degrees at Duke. As of right now, that isn't true everywhere, but my guess it it will be in 10 years. I think it will be especially true in regards to teaching clinical courses since the DNP is the terminal clinical degree.

What is really comes down to is if you want to do original research or not. It you do, go the PhD route.

good luck!

Thank you to everyone who replied. Lots for me to think about.

Do you intend to be a practice-based person, or a research-based person?

I know several research-based faculty who have let their NP licensures lapse because they are not able to clock the NP practice hours needed to maintain the NP certification. For ANCC certified NPs, this means having at least 1000 hours as a NP in your clinical subspecialty in the past 5 years. This amounts to an average of 5 full-time weeks per year as a NP. For the research-based faculty member who is also teaching full-time, working in those practice hours on one's vacation just to maintain certification can be an added stress.

So to follow-up on the above comments, I encourage you to think of the longer-term plan. Then select the best pathway for your particular goals.

Arizona state or University of Arizona offers a dual phd/dnp as well

I plan on getting my PhD in epidemiology once I finish CNM school and pay off all my damn student loans. I chose this track instead of DNP because I am still not sold on the solidity and standardization of the DNP degree (not digging on DNPs here, trust me.). Also, I have always had a passion for public health and hope to do international work and health care policy, and I believe a PhD will give me a solid background in research, and really- the public health focus is what I want most. I think the PhD route is more compatible with my long term goals.

So, I think it really depends on what you want out of your education and your career.