Best Specialties for Moonlighting

Started by BucsFan813
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BucsFan813

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question.

What are the best specialties for moonlighting?
Secondly, what specialties make moonlighting impossible?
 
Surgery makes it pretty hard. Remember, moonlighting hours count in your 80 hours.
EM makes it easy. Family people can do it. There are others.
 
BucsFan813 said:
I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question.

What are the best specialties for moonlighting?
Secondly, what specialties make moonlighting impossible?
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Internal medicine subspecialties are good because you can be a board certified internist while you complete a fellowship. This opens many, many doors. A PGY4 cards fellow has many more options than a PGY4 surgery resident. (putting aside whether their program will allow it.)
 
Internal medicine is a good specialty for moonlighting. It offers lots of flexibility: you can be a hospitalist, take calls for medical groups, take ICU calls, on weekend you can work in clinics/urgent care, some places even allow IM to work in ER. IM moonlighting usually pays $65-95 an hour, depending on how busy the call is. Some calls you will be sleeping or sitting around for the most part. The best thing is, there are opportunities pretty much everywhere (including metro areas) any time.

However, it's more difficult for highly specialized fields such as ophtho, rad onc, path to find moonlight spots. I have heard of ophtho work for optometrists on weekends to do refraction, but the pay is really bad.
 
Internal Medicine, of course. At my program we get paid $75/hr and we can do 12 or 24 hour shifts.
 
Technically speaking, anyone who has passed steps 1, 2 and 3 and has medical license can moonlight, say in a general medicine clinic or ER. But most derm, ophtho, path and rad onc people don't feel comfortable managing complex medical problems or run a code with only a year of prelim under their belt. But I guess if you keep up with your medicine skills, and hospitals are willing to hire you, you can certainly moonlight in urgent care clinic or something. And I've never heard of any dermatologists trying to hire derm residents to moonlight for them.
 
Though moonlighting opportunities are generally available to even sub-specialitiey fields (Derm, RadOnc), it is generally much easier & therefore more lucrative to find job opprotunities for moonlighting in primary care fields as mentioned above.

As Pilot Doc stated, IM fellows probably have it best. They generally have more spare time than an IM resident and already have a full medicine residency under their belt so they can practice in a wide variety of settings.
 
What about malpractice insurance? Just how much are you really making after you pay your premium?
 
docB said:
Are you sure about that? I thought any work, especially clinical work like moonlighting, counted toward the 80 hours.
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Yes. I am sure. Individual programs may place additional restrictions on moonlighting, but the ACGME does not.

See the ACGME duty hour regs. Pertinent parts are

VI. B 1- Duty hours are defined as all clinical and academic activities related to the residency program; i.e., patient care (both inpatient and outpatient), administrative duties relative to patient care, the provision for transfer of patient care, time spent in-house during call activities, and scheduled activities such as conferences. Duty hours do not include reading and preparation time spent away from the duty site.

VI. D. 3. Any hours a resident works for compensation at the sponsoring institution or any of the sponsor’s primary clinical sites must be considered part of the 80-hour weekly limit on duty hours. This refers to the practice of internal moonlighting.

Internal moonlighting counts - everything else does not.
 
If you are interested in Path your weekends are usually free so if you are in a major city you could possibly catch an autopsy or two on weekends at the ME/Coroners office. Nice sideline job; bad for them, but good for you. 👍
 
kittykat said:
If you are interested in Path your weekends are usually free so if you are in a major city you could possibly catch an autopsy or two on weekends at the ME/Coroners office. Nice sideline job; bad for them, but good for you. 👍
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How much do you get paid for moonlighting at coroner's office? Do you get paid for each autopsy you do, or by hours?
 
instead of finding a specialty where you can make money moonlighting, you should think of the long term potential of making money as a board certified doc AFTER residency...
 
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