There will be lots of changes in the next few years. Most places do not allow moonlighting until the end of your 2nd year...but the trend is away from moonlighting. The ACEP and SAEM is doing their best to stop the practice all together in the ED.
It depends on the state as well. In VA any doctor can moonlight after they take step 3. They require one year of residency to be eligible to take step 3 for US grads and 3 years for FMGs. Even a pathologist can moonlight in primary care if they wanted. But, most moonlight for area path groups or for the medical examiner.
I work at an urgent care clinic as a medic. We have several residents that moonlight there, anywhere from surgery, to er, to primary care, to neurology residents work there....for a good salary too...80 to 120 dollars per hour!!
Where do residents find the time to moonlight? Aren't you incredibly busy as it is? On average, how many days off would you have per month that you could devote to moonlighting?
another take on the moonlighting issue...the ER'S I work in(3) all use residents with variable levels of success.IM residents are basically worthless in the ER because they can not work up peds cases or trauma.they are great at working up IM types of problems (chest pain,dyspnea, etc) but are worthless at anything else.when they work a 12 hr shift, they see 7-10 pts while everyone else sees 25+. FP residents fit into an ER setting much better because of their broad based training.the ideal is to have 2nd and 3rd year EM residents because they do this every day anyway. my feeling is that non-EM people should not be allowed to moonlight in the main ER(fast track is ok for FP) or outside of their specialty area.