Solicitation for Thoughts on Academia

I'm a career changer who is now entering his third year of nursing. On top of that, I'm entering my third year of my MSN program. Yes, it's three years long! My focus is psych-MH nurse practitioner. I actually got through nursing school and graduated with the express purpose of becoming a PMHNP.

Having said that, every day I come to work, I want less and less direct involvement with patient care. I'm not sure if it's rapid burn out or the traditional nursing role is just not well suited for my own personal tastes and development, but I'm always searching for a "better" nursing job. That's not to say I follow up on them. I just like knowing what's out there. It's sad, but I don't even like being inside a hospital anymore.

I want to finish this program and enter psychiatric advanced practice. I'm looking forward to it, and I think it'll be interesting and rewarding. I never really thought doing med-surg kinds of activities would be interesting, and having that negative attitude I suppose caused med-surg stuff to be less than appealing to me. However, I'd like to explore other opportunities.

I've recently started thinking about getting a doctorate and not so I can call myself "Dr. PsychGuy." I'm not really a fan of the DNP as far as it being a promotional degree for nursing. I don't think the DNP in and of itself will ever cause APRNs, as an example, to become totally independent, etc. However, I find it more appealing than a PhD. On that note, I could get a DNP and do well at it. I always tend to do well academically, and I feel more drawn to the DNP coursework than the added research methodology and statistics of PhD programs.

Also, my first job out of college was teaching biology, chemistry, and anatomy/physiology. I only did it for a couple of years and at this point no longer even include it on my work history or resume, but other than trying to rein in 16 year olds I enjoyed it. I wouldn't go back to it, but it wasn't a bad job unless I've "forgotten the bad." At the time, I wanted to become a H.S. counselor but never followed through, yet I quit teaching and went on to do something vastly different for the next eight years.

On a final note, I know I could be assigned to teach any topic at a university. However, there aren't many now that I feel qualified to teach at least as they relate to direct nursing practice. I'd feel comfortable if not happy in pathophysiology, pharmacology, health assessment, mental health, research methodology, healthcare management, and even informatics classes. However, I have no surgical experience and even in med-surg never had "surg" patients, no OB or baby experience, no intensive care experience, no long-term care experience, and probably less than 20 hours of pediatric exposure. I know almost nothing about "bedside skills," and I am pretty turned off at the possibility of leading a clinical rotation.

I feel like a lot of my college faculty were ok with bedside skills and direct nursing, but most of them were a bit lax in the other stuff, i.e. the stuff I think I could teach.

I realize the above is likely perceived as negative, but do you feel someone as described above (me) would be successful or even welcomed in a university system?

Thanks,

PG