Extra $$$ During residency

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scrubbedin

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Now that moonlighting is rare (and anyway banned in my program)...does anyone out there have any brilliant ideas about how to make a little extra cash during free time of residency. I'm so broke - I've seriously thought about getting a job at the GAP to make ends meet. I'd appreciate any ideas.
 
just work (moonlight) at the next closest hospital. your hospital cannot ban you from working at another hospital. what you do on your own time is your own business, so technically, they can't punish you.
 
If they find out they may be able to. You may want to work at the hospital across town or something like that.
 
My program (and others that I've asked about) will fire you if they catch you moonlighting. I dont know the technicalities of how they are allowed to fire you for that, but I'm not going to question it....so I'm looking for a non-moonlighting job.
 
Why are you so broke? I mean they pay between 33 to 40 K per year. You can defer your student loans. The average American salary is 40K per year.

Are you in a big city or have other debts?
 
If your contract limits moonlighting you could always consider getting a part-time retail job (as odious as that sounds). A more cumbersome, but perhaps more worthwhile long-term prospect is to establish in-house opportunities for your program to legitimately be able to make extra money. That way the program could account for your work hours, admission caps for the teaching services could be observed and you could make extra money.
 
Have you considered signing with a clinic/hospital? The clinics around here will pay a monthly stipend of $1,000-1,500 during residency in return for a three year commitment.
 
I give plasma.$25 an hour, can donate twice weekly. Can't close your eyes, and they check your elbows for IV drug use. I catch up on reading. I just hope I don't sit next to one of my patients.
 
I was looking at some ways to make $ on the side too. Anyone know if you can start doing botox on the side? And would you need to find outside malpractice insurance?
 
NDMD said:
Have you considered signing with a clinic/hospital? The clinics around here will pay a monthly stipend of $1,000-1,500 during residency in return for a three year commitment.
Click to expand...


Where's "here" and what specialties?
 
You could always teach a class or two at the local community college. Medical term, anatomy, phys would be very easy to teach with MD.
 
consult your official resident handbook to find your institution's definition of moonlighting. My pd tells us anything we do to draw income apart from our university is moonlighting.

my wife and I rented out an extra room in our house to a young woman with two masters degrees who has a 9-5 highschool teaching position who is salaried and was looking for cheap place to live while re-paying her student loans. Her rent covers over 1/3 of our mortgage payment or can also be viewed as making my truck payment for my new nissan titan truck. we found her off
www.craigslist.org

another easy, low-risk moonlighting gig is dictating discharge summaries for private practice docs who have no lowly residents to s* on. I charged $25 per, and usually took me about 15 minutes per d/c summary.

Hope this helps
 
Medical writing. There's a huge demand for it, so you could try for some freelance gigs. Can work anywhere there's a computer, and pretty much the hours you choose. You would need to have some ability at writing, that's all.

scrubbedin said:
Now that moonlighting is rare (and anyway banned in my program)...does anyone out there have any brilliant ideas about how to make a little extra cash during free time of residency. I'm so broke - I've seriously thought about getting a job at the GAP to make ends meet. I'd appreciate any ideas.
Click to expand...
 
giles said:
Medical writing. There's a huge demand for it, so you could try for some freelance gigs. Can work anywhere there's a computer, and pretty much the hours you choose. You would need to have some ability at writing, that's all.
Click to expand...

what exactly is medical writing? does it entail writing medical protocols, writing journal articles or research results? please shed some light to this topic.
 
american gigolo
 
Yes to all of those. It's a pretty diverse field that literally encompasses any form of written medical content. But most of it is drug-related and driven by pharmaceutical companies. Of that, there are two broad areas -- regulatory, i.e. compiling clinical trial results for submission of a NDA dossier to the FDA or ghostwriting an original clinical research paper; and communications, e.g. ghostwriting review/opinion articles for name doctors for publication in medical journals, and producing posters, slide kits, non-published competitor reviews, product monographs etc.

Regulatory is designed to support the licensing of a drug, communications is intended to promote its use (although it's not explicit marketing, per se).

Regulatory is often done in-house by pharma company employees, although not always. Communications is usually contracted out to medical communications/marketing agencies who employ PhD or MD-qualified writers, in-house and freelance.

prominence said:
what exactly is medical writing? does it entail writing medical protocols, writing journal articles or research results? please shed some light to this topic.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all your suggestions guys, I might try to look into stuff. As to the "why?" - my program is in a large expensive city and pays pretty poorly by comparison to other programs, and I've just got saddled with a lot of surprise expenses this year - broken car, struggling family, stupid condo association, etc. Not that that is any of anyone's business anyway....
How do you find these jobs in medical writing? I have a friend who did some freelance stuff for a nursing journal - writing articles about stratigies to get your patients to quit smoking, etc. But how do you find these jobs? The ghostwriting jobs? The SAT grading? Any links or phone numbers?
Thanks-
 
You ask someone a simple question. He gives and answer then says "not that it's any of your business anyway"

Then why did you answer it?

You got tons of answer in here for your question. If you want to be rude then go work anywhere you want.

You made it our business when you posted in here. 😡
 
gwen said:
just work (moonlight) at the next closest hospital. your hospital cannot ban you from working at another hospital. what you do on your own time is your own business, so technically, they can't punish you.
Click to expand...


Where I was a resident a surgery resident was moonlighting against the rules in a small town ER he transferred a patient back to his home institution and when the attending found out they paced him on probation and almost kicked him out of the program.
 
Last year as an intern I made an additional $5000. I did two things.

1. www.sermo.com - I was paid $50 per clinical insight that I submitted. Every resident should check out this website. When I got my first check I looked it over to make sure that it was real. Sure enough it was nicely deposited in my checking account.

2. I did one hour teleconferences pedaling drugs. A week after each conference they would send me a certificate for an item worth $100. I would get the item and turn around and sell it on ebay. Easy money and I learned a few things at the same time.

This year I'll be making money the old fashioned way- moonlighting.

Let me know if you have any questions.
 
azmatti said:
Hi
Thanks for the post. I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about Sermo? Can I do it as an intern? Also do you have a good website to get started on these teleconferences sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies. When I was in med school, I saw these being offered, never did them, but I knew they existed. Do you have a place where I can get started?

Thanks,
Matt
Click to expand...

I do my teleconferences with the Peer group. I can't remember the phone number. Do a google search.

I also do online surveys with the Brand Institute. Again, do a google search.

Sermo is self explanatory. Just get on the website and read.
 
erichaj said:
You ask someone a simple question. He gives and answer then says "not that it's any of your business anyway"

Then why did you answer it?

You got tons of answer in here for your question. If you want to be rude then go work anywhere you want.

You made it our business when you posted in here. 😡
Click to expand...

Whoa. Take it easy. I'm wasnt trying to be harsh or rude, I just thought it was a weird question to ask. Lots of people have lots of reasons for wanting to make extra money, asking me why wasnt really relavent to the original post.
How about some productive posting instead of pointless jabs? I get enough abuse from my attendings.
Who says I'm a "he"?

Thanks for the links guys, it's really helpful and I'm sure lots of us really appreciate it.
 
scrubbedin said:
How do you find these jobs in medical writing? I have a friend who did some freelance stuff for a nursing journal - writing articles about stratigies to get your patients to quit smoking, etc. But how do you find these jobs? The ghostwriting jobs?
Thanks-
Click to expand...

You could trying contacting medical communications agencies (e.g. Helix http://www.helix-medcom.com/careers/, Medical Writers Group http://health.mediwrite.biz/), and following up with your friend who did the nursing journal stuff might be useful.

Probably the hardest part is getting a foot in the door, if you have not written before. But once you have some experience, it becomes a lot easier to get freelance work.

It's a global industry so there's no need to restrict yourself to US companies.

A few more links that could be useful:
http://www.drugandmarket.com/default.asp?page=write
http://www.amwa-dvc.org/toolkit/index.shtml
http://www.emwa.org/
 
gree0411 said:
I also do online surveys with the Brand Institute.
Click to expand...

did you do medical surveys with the Brand Institute? if so, did they require you to be licensed at the time to participate?
 
prominence said:
did you do medical surveys with the Brand Institute? if so, did they require you to be licensed at the time to participate?
Click to expand...

Yes, you must have a medical license.
 
So what are some examples of moonlighting these days if you live ina bigger city. I have seen lots of psych residents do it-but they do things like moonlight in a jail or the VA emergency psych-things like that. But where do things like IM, surgery etc moonlight now adays? I would think the ED was once a popular place but now adays with so many ED residents in bigger cities-whereelse would you guys moonlight?

The psych residents clean up moonlighting-most I know make an extra 40 or 50k a year-it is really great!
 
I worked as a male stripper for awhile. It was always after hours and the money was great until my program found out. They were pissed and gave me some lecture about it being unethical or some such nonsense.....😡
 
I have my internship done and don't have a residency to finish. I applied for an NP job at a health center, figuring they could get a cheap MD, and I could pay the electric bill. They said "We'd love to have you but that's a union job for nurses." And the students at that health center complain about the NPs all the time. Who the hell set up this system to screw over doctors?
 
Check out two Yahoo groups that are all about making extra money during residency. They are entitled 1. MDteleconferences 2. telcon
I have found some great stuff on there. Hope this helps.
 
I too would love to make some extra $$ during residency and I do appreciate all of the ideas that I have seen thus far.😳 But I have a couple questions and a comment:

1. does sermo.com require a full MD license or can you have a training license?

2. I tried to find that yahoo group telcon and could not find it. is it by chance PAR-telecon?

And finally my comment. While on residency interviews, I was told that the definition of moonlighting was any employment in a hospital that involved patient care. This is because the 80 hr work week rule limits the amount of time that you can spend in a hospital and depending on where you moonlight, that could affect your hours. A program could not sanction you for moonlighting outside of medicine, and for example, (and this is the PD's definition and specific example when I was on my interview at that site) if you were in a band and making money from that in YOUR FREE TIME. She specifically said that if any program were to do so it would be a violation of your rights (to paraphrase). This PD was a former chair of the governing body for residency education in my current specialty, so I considered her to be a reliable source.

If anyone had heard different let me know.
 
whatsthat? said:
I too would love to make some extra $$ during residency and I do appreciate all of the ideas that I have seen thus far.😳 But I have a couple questions and a comment:

1. does sermo.com require a full MD license or can you have a training license?

2. I tried to find that yahoo group telcon and could not find it. is it by chance PAR-telecon?

And finally my comment. While on residency interviews, I was told that the definition of moonlighting was any employment in a hospital that involved patient care. This is because the 80 hr work week rule limits the amount of time that you can spend in a hospital and depending on where you moonlight, that could affect your hours. A program could not sanction you for moonlighting outside of medicine, and for example, (and this is the PD's definition and specific example when I was on my interview at that site) if you were in a band and making money from that in YOUR FREE TIME. She specifically said that if any program were to do so it would be a violation of your rights (to paraphrase). This PD was a former chair of the governing body for residency education in my current specialty, so I considered her to be a reliable source.

If anyone had heard different let me know.
Click to expand...

You can use a training license for Sermo.
I don't know what to tell you about telcon. I'm a member of it. Were you able to find MDteleconferences? Let me know.
 
I found the mdteleconferences group. Thanks!
 
timtye78 said:
another easy, low-risk moonlighting gig is dictating discharge summaries for private practice docs who have no lowly residents to s* on. I charged $25 per, and usually took me about 15 minutes per d/c summary.

Hope this helps
Click to expand...

Did you get this through your hospital? My hosp has residents/fellows in almost all the high volume specialties. If not at you home institution then how do you go about finding out about these?

Thanks
 
hey dante, love your dog pic, is that a shih tzu?
 
NDMD said:
Have you considered signing with a clinic/hospital? The clinics around here will pay a monthly stipend of $1,000-1,500 during residency in return for a three year commitment.
Click to expand...

WHOA! 👎

Do not accept any BS indentured servitudes like this.
 
I dont understand...how do residents have time for moonlighting? Dont you guys work like 80 hr weeks? Or is that only during intern year?

How much does moonlighting usually pay?
 
NRAI2001 said:
I dont understand...how do residents have time for moonlighting? Dont you guys work like 80 hr weeks? Or is that only during intern year?

How much does moonlighting usually pay?
Click to expand...

The 80 hr weeks can extend throughout your entire residency (my surgical one did, and predated the 80 hr week rules) although you may have some rotations or there may be some residencies which work less than 80 hr average.

But there are still vacations, days off, years in the lab, etc. available for moonlighting should you choose to do it. The pay varies wildly depending on what you do; I get between $50-$75/hr for a "sleep for pay" job.
 
The_Sensei said:
I worked as a male stripper for awhile. It was always after hours and the money was great until my program found out. They were pissed and gave me some lecture about it being unethical or some such nonsense.....😡
Click to expand...

agree with dante...don't post this BS without PICS
 
gree0411 said:
You can use a training license for Sermo.
I don't know what to tell you about telcon. I'm a member of it. Were you able to find MDteleconferences? Let me know.
Click to expand...

In the SDN classifieds section under jobs and opportunities you can learn more about getting paid for The Brand Institute surveys. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
 
FWIW as alluded to before....
my boyfriend was looking to moonlight during his fellowship (another sleep for pay position) and the biggest obstical was malpractice. His fellowship bosses allowed him to work but would not extend his malpractice coverage to any moonlighting activities, and although they eventually relented, the other hospital was reluctant to add him to their coverage.
 
I did medical transcription work.
 
How did you get hooked up w/that
 
You can do a medical transcription job at home, or anywhere there is a computer. There are some companies that will pay .07 per line. So if you do 5,000 lines a week minimum, you can make over 1,000 a month.

I’m actually going to do this for myself. This is some really good money to have to pay those bills and those unexpected costs that ALWAYS pop up.


scrubbedin said:
Now that moonlighting is rare (and anyway banned in my program)...does anyone out there have any brilliant ideas about how to make a little extra cash during free time of residency. I'm so broke - I've seriously thought about getting a job at the GAP to make ends meet. I'd appreciate any ideas.
Click to expand...
 
gwen said:
just work (moonlight) at the next closest hospital. your hospital cannot ban you from working at another hospital. what you do on your own time is your own business, so technically, they can't punish you.
Click to expand...

Uhh the contract I signed says I can not work at another hospital this yr unless approved by my program. I am guessing if you do this then you will run the risk of getting fired.
 
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