PhD/NP advice

I am posting in hopes of soliciting some feedback from clinical nurse practioners and if possible any nurse practiioners with PhDs. I am currently a second year grad student in an unrelated program. Beginning in the Fall I plan in enrolling in the minimum grad hrs to be considered a full-time student (9 hrs) while simultaneously pursuing an ADN at my local community college (10 hrs/semester). My plan is to graduate with ADN in Spring '08 to get licensed as an RN and the following year (Spring '09) to graduate with a PhD in Speech and Hearing Science. My goal is to pursue an MSN Nurse Practioner program following completion of the PhD. Now that you have some background, I would like to ask two questions

(1) Am I getting in way over my head with doing 9 grad hrs (PhD) and 10 undergrad hrs (nursing) simultaneously? Additonal notes include: I have a 5 year old daughter that spends three nights a week with me, need to work part-time while in school, and ADN program is 30 minutes away. The ADN program requires me to be there 4 days per week mainly just from early morning until early/mid-afternoon. I am a procrastinator but also one of the top students in my dept's program. Additonally, I have worked as a pharmacy technician for the past 4½ years (also took course in pharm nursing dept at university doin PhD at) so pharmacology is not a problem for me. I dont have a problem writing papers but would likely be annoyed by nursing theory/diag/care plans.

(2) My goal is to be a nurse practioner in ENT but cannot in ENT then in neuro or neurosurg. I would like to collaborate with physicians to do clinical research in field. My question is : is it unlikely that a physician would want to do research when not associated with a med school and with not being compensated for it? If they did not want to do research, how likely is it that they would tolerate me doin it within their clinic assuming it did not take up significant time from my work? Lastly, do university nursing programs frown upon NPs having PhDs in non-nursing areas as opposed to nursing?

Sorry my post is so long and thanks in advance for your responses

Mark

Hello, Mark,:balloons:

It appears you are very disciplined with your programs and job so, I think you will have no problem handling that load.

You are correct in the statement that doing care plans might be somewhat "annoying", but, most definitely needed in order to learn how to deliver care to your patient effectively. The theory courses will enable you to prepare for clinicals. Not to mention they all come together to help prepare you for the NCLEX.

As for the NP track, I think you will do well. You will have a well rounded background and probably will be successful.

Where I am, our physicians have no problem allowing research to be conducted without compensation. The individuals doing this must sign the appropriate contracts (mostly revolving around HIPAA) in our facility regarding policy/procedure/confidentiality, etc.

And, lastly regarding whether the schools frown upon the nurse with non-nursing PhD, I guess that could be an issue with some, but, certainly not the norm.