Extra income during residency

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JMS204

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Hi everyone. I've been looking into ways to make extra income during residency. I'm a second year FM resident. My program doesn't let us do any clinical work until 3rd year. I came across medical transcription, since I thought it would be a nice, easy way to make a buck on the side at home. So I emailed a company, and they wanted me to take a class. Has anyone heard of this? I mean, as a doctor who does dictations, I don't think I should have to do a class... any ideas?

As a side note- any other ideas for income? And please no... cut expenses lectures. I've done the best I can to do that and am still coming up short. 😵

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I looked into something like this. It's actually harder than you think and highly annoying. I applied for a job as a medical transcriber where they send you e-mails with audio clips and you get paid about 1dollar/audio clip minute. The first 20 minute audio clip they sent me(as a screening test) took forever(about 2 hoursish) and I type 120 wpm with very high accuracy. So thats 20 dollars for 2 hours of work..meh. You have to change lines every time someone different starts talking, label that accordingly, you can't always tell who is who, they mumble, audio quality is alright. After looking more into it they reccommend buying some foot pedals to play/pause audios and some softwares that make it easier. In short, I didn't find it worth while. 😛
 
Harumph. I need something extra. I have had some unexpected expenses come up that I can't ignore. Any other ideas as to how to make an extra buck?
 
become a standardized patient? med schools usually pay and its can be decent…25/hr?
any in-house moonlighting? my residency had that to cover some weekend shifts…about 40-50/hr
 
become a standardized patient? med schools usually pay and its can be decent…25/hr?...

I'm not sure the pay is "decent". In red light districts I suspect you'd get a lot more to let a dozen strangers palpate your prostate. The people who do this aren't doing it for the money -- it's their way to be involved in medical education, often after having bad experiences with health care providers in the past. Or they are out if work actors who see this playing a patient kind of a semi-legit role.
 
I'm not sure the pay is "decent". In red light districts I suspect you'd get a lot more to let a dozen strangers palpate your prostate. The people who do this aren't doing it for the money -- it's their way to be involved in medical education, often after having bad experiences with health care providers in the past. Or they are out if work actors who see this playing a patient kind of a semi-legit role.
lol, being a that kind of standardized pt paid better (50 dollars as i recall and that was over 10 yrs ago), but you're right a lot of the SPs did it because they wanted to be involved in teaching us…but hey! depends on how much he needs the money i guess...
 
See if some residents will pay you do some weekend calls?

Have you started looking for jobs? Some places will give you a monthly stipend during residency (1-2k) after you sign and/or a sign on bonus. If you are interested in rural family med, there may be programs in your state that offer stipend that start during residency (like the TN rural partnership). If really in a bind, there are banks that have specific physician loans. I know as a resident I received monthly ads from sun trust. Do you have your license? Some imaging places do after hours imaging and require a physician to be present in case of emergency. I know a residency that the residents moon lighted there. They used those hours to catch up on charts and studying.
 
No moonlighting in 2nd year in my program... which for us means no CLINICAL work. So I bet the disability physicals will be out, but it's worth checking. I'll look into the website. Standardized patient isn't a bad idea. Any idea how to get into that? I don't have a prostate though. And I'm not offering my services for PAP smear practice. Ha!
 
I'm applying for psych residency and was told recently that you can't moonlight until 4th year. I'm also a certified paramedic. Could I work part-time or per-diem during the first 3 years of residency? Or are there legal/medical liability problems?

--Sean
 
I'm applying for psych residency and was told recently that you can't moonlight until 4th year. I'm also a certified paramedic. Could I work part-time or per-diem during the first 3 years of residency? Or are there legal/medical liability problems?

--Sean

Every psych residency program is different. Some never allow moonlighting, and others like mine allow it beginning pgy-2. Once you feel comfortable with your program director, I would ask about the paramedic option. My director said that only jobs requiring an MD were excluded until pgy-2, but I could see other places being more strict.
 
1. Tutor med students
2. Kaplan tutor if you had good enough grades
3. Housekeeping services - Decent rate and usually can schedule a few clients
4. Bar Tender
5. Local Moving Services - Mover for a few days
6. Delivery Drivers
7. Baby Sitting for other residents/attendings/local population (people firmly believe its awesome to have a PALS/BLS/ACLS resident taking care of their child)
8. Egg Donation
 
Sorry I was not being serious about this.

Well, the rules exist precisely because it's happened in the past, so it's not far fetched enough for us to assume it was a joke. Heck, I would have subcontracted away a call or two if it was allowed. But because it's viewed as educational rather than work, it's on par with paying someone to take a test for you.
 
Teach ACLS/BLS/PALS. was like 80/hr with zero liability, and you already should know everything.
 
Clinical moonlighting for residents really depends on geography. It will be virtually impossible in highly populated urban areas.

I also look for side work- and eve as an attending in Chicago (where there are more doctors per capita than anywhere in the world), it's impossible to find any "moonlighting" gig within the city limits.

Stick with nonclinical gigs: teaching, babysitting, online surveys, investing
 
Clinical moonlighting for residents really depends on geography. It will be virtually impossible in highly populated urban areas.

I also look for side work- and eve as an attending in Chicago (where there are more doctors per capita than anywhere in the world), it's impossible to find any "moonlighting" gig within the city limits.

Stick with nonclinical gigs: teaching, babysitting, online surveys, investing
actually the city with the most doctors per capita is rochester, minn (per the AP)

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It turns out that Iowa City should be one of the best places in the country to live if you suddenly get sick or suffer an injury.

With 1,915 physicians — or 1,305 per 100,000 people — the Iowa City area has the second-most physicians per capita in the nation. That's according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 edition of the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, which was released this week.

The only urban area with more physicians per capita is Rochester, Minn., which is, of course, home to the Mayo Clinic. Rochester has 3,374 physicians, or 1,871 per 100,000 people.

As a point of reference, the Des Moines-West Des Moines metropolitan statistical area has 1,169 physicians — or 214 per 100,000.
 
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