Moonlighting

[postbacpremed87]

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How much did you make moonlighting in your psych residency years? I'm a budget guy and I wanted to see if I could pay off all med school debt during residency. I plan on devoting whole paycheck to loan repayment (spouse works).

 

[Shikima]

Get into residency first and then whichever program you match at will have unique moonlighting rules.

 

[postbacpremed87]

Get into residency first and then whichever program you match at will have unique moonlighting rules.

Perhaps a general picture of what's possible?

 

[Shikima]

Can't say, each program is different. When I went through I had X dollars for Y work, and then the following year (PGY-3), they took it all away saying that it's apart of your normal work rotation, so, we had to suck it up as buttercups. Some programs don't even allow moonlighting.

Again, contact the deptarment and ask them what the moonlighting requirements are.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

The golden years of moonlighting are pretty much over.

 

[notdeadyet]

I'd caution against being too all or nothing with moonlighting. Some really helps your development as a clinician, more plateaus out, and too much actually hampers it. I moonlight a lot, but I can fell that edge where it could start to actually impact residency training, which you only have the opportunity to do once.

Personally, I'd try to moonlight and pay off some of the loans, but make the most out of residency. You will have more opportunity and better pay to go hogwild immediately after becoming board eligible.

 

[Sporadicus]

Perhaps a general picture of what's possible?

My program allows its residents to moonlight much as they want once they finish the C/L rotation in PGY2, most of the PGY3's moonlight doing a couple of weekends a month; some go outside the program altogether and find random places like juvenile detention centers. I wouldn't count on more than a couple thousand a month.

On the interview trail the highest number I heard was $50k, and I believe that came from a guy at Yale.

That being said, I totally agree with notdeadyet. Why not wait until after residency to pull the insane hours? Your time will be worth a lot more then. If you can afford to pay $5,000 a month out of your post tax budget, you can live very comfortably and still knock out a quarter million loan in ~ 5 years

 

[cookymonster]

I moonlight for 60-72 hours a month at $100/hour. I'd say it's pretty easy work. I never really had much in the way of loans, so financially what it means for me is that I put pretty much all my residency salary in various tax-deferred retirement vehicles (401k, 457, 403b, HSA and Roth IRA).

 

[TexasPhysician]

40-50k additional per year for me.

 

[Firewood]

40-50k additional per year for me.

Out of curiosity, how many nights and/or weekends a month are you moonlighting?

 

[MDchouette]

Someone at my program (in MA) doubled her salary as a PGY4 doing more moonlighting than I could and stay sane, but she felt great about it. As a PGY3 I found it tolerable to do two overnight weekend shifts a month, which was a little less than $2000 per month after taxes.

Keep in mind that you are going to have to allot a third of whatever you bring home to pay in taxes, since most places will pay you as a contractor.

You definitely need to find out the moonlighting rules for your program. Hopkins doesn't allow moonlighting. Cambridge pays you to take extra call. There's a lot of variability.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Out of curiosity, how many nights and/or weekends a month are you moonlighting?

Hard to say as I have multiple moonlighting jobs to keep things interesting.