almostPhD

I am a 30 year old graduate student (at a sort of second tier program) who should get a Ph. D. in chemistry either in may or over the summer. My undergrad degree was with a BS in chemistry (~3.6 GPA 3.8 in major courses), I have been lucky to have gotten a 4.0 in my graduate courses. I took the GRE in 1999 and got a combined ~2070 (600 Verbal/700 Quant/ 770 Analytical) and I got a (respectable) 690 on the chemistry subject test. I've been primary author on 4 papers, and co-author on 3. I've won a few awards, and am relatively sure I could get at least 3 good references from faculty. I have taken neither college level biology nor psychology, and only one undergrad level biochem class. For a variety of reasons (not least of which is that time goes, the life of being an academic becomes less and less attractive), I'm seriously considering a career change, and becoming a nurse practitioner has entered my mind (it's something I considered doing as an undergrad, but life took me in another direction - my mother talked me out of nursing and into chemistry.) Because I know relatively few people who I can talk to about this (at least before I get more serious about it) I'd like to ask a few questions here. By senior year of undergrad I knew what I was getting into for chemistry grad programs, but this is well outside my experience. 1. I strongly suspect that if I decide to do this, I'll spend next year clearing up prereqs. A&P, microbiology, psyche, etc. I've taken a grad level course in statistical physics, but I suspect I need to take a statistics class anyway (because I've never taken it). This one is not so much a question as an observation. 2. Do you think I'll need to retake the GRE? A few places explicitly say that a previous grad degree takes care of that requirement, but not everywhere. What do you think? 3. In the year that I plan to spend doing prereqs, should I try and volunteer at a hospital or some other medical facility? I guess it can't hurt, but I want other people's opinions as to how important it will be. 4. *I* know that this has sort of been on my mind for a while, but I'm afraid that an interviewer will think that this is strange ... I worry that I'll drop everything here, not do a postdoc, get thru to apply to nursing programs/direct entry np programs and not get past the interview, in the process screwing everything up Should I worry much about this? Are people admitted to direct entry programs usually coming from this far away in their training? 5. Should I try and get into a direct entry program or start with a BSN? I basically plan to apply to both as plan A&B respectively. 6. Is the quality of the school you go to a big factor in determining where you wind up? Are there schools you just need to avoid? Basically in chemistry, there's a heirarchy. People who go to like 5 schools get most of the good jobs. Is the NP profession like that? 7. I'm sure I could go on with chemistry, and be relatively happy, but this *feels* like the last chance I'll have to make a change like this, and it feels right, but at the same time it feels crazy and a little dangerous. I guess this is a yes/no question. Crazy? I'm sure there's more I've forgotten, but this feels like a good start. Thanks for listening.