How do I programmatically change the note type of a note?

I'm currently trying to develop an Anki addon that changes the note type of a card when in the card browser.

To accomplish this, I'm initially hooking into the editor shortcuts via aqt.gui_hooks.editor_did_init_shortcuts.append(), then adding a shortcut that sends a callback to another function, passing in aqt.editor.Editor into a function

the problem is I'm now having a hard time changing the note type of the card.

I've tried editor.note.note_type = mw.col.models.by_name(note_type), but it doesn't seem to change anything.

I've looked at other anki extensions, but it seems they change the note_type by modifying the notetype_chooser.selected_note_type_id field of aqt.addcards, which is not found in aqt.editor.Editor

here's the code I have so far:

def editor_switch_note_card_type(editor: aqt.editor.Editor, note_type: str):
    # doesn't do anything
    editor.note.note_type = mw.col.models.by_name(note_type)
    # does something
    editor.note['Front'] += 'hello world'
    # not sure if this does anything
    mw.col.update_note(editor.note)

# editor_init_shortcuts binds editor_switch_note_card_type to a shortcut key when editor is focused
aqt.gui_hooks.editor_did_init_shortcuts.append(editor_init_shortcuts)