A weekend on-call rotation that does not pretend Saturday is a Tuesday.

A weekend on-call rotation schedule template for groups of 4, 5, and 6. Two published methods put a number on a weekend, and they are not the same number. The tables use one of them and say so. The other is quoted beside it, with the values that article actually printed.

The weights come from two published articles, each named and linked below.

Two ways to weight a weekend

Physicians Practice, 2006, an example

Elizabeth Woodcock, “Pearls: Making Call Duty Fair,” Physicians Practice, dated July 15, 2006 on the page, and said there to have appeared in the July/August 2006 issue. On equalizing the burden, the article says:

Woodcock suggests giving every call slot a weight, for example 1 for a weekday, 2 for a weekend and 5 for a holiday, and keeping each physician’s yearly total about the same.

Those three numbers are the article’s example. They are not a measurement, and they are not the only weights in print. The same paragraph says you may also want to rotate major holidays, gather requests at least three months ahead, compose calendars at least two months ahead, and consider a five-year calendar for major holidays. It does not give a seat formula. The holiday rotation on this site’s holiday page is a formula of ours, not one from this article.

The article also says a group can put nonphysician providers on first call, and that it should decide what happens when someone retires or cuts back, including letting physicians pay a colleague to take call. This page does not turn those into a grid.

AAFP FPM, 2002, a voted scale

Allen Daugird, MD, MBA, “Call RVUs: One Way to Make Call More Equitable,” Family Practice Management 2002;9(6):31-34. His department at the University of North Carolina defined one weeknight of general inpatient call as 1.0, had the clinicians who take call vote on the other duties, and averaged the ballots. The article prints the inpatient attending values they adopted:

Swipe the table if it runs past the edge of the screen.

A separate OB and newborn scale on the same page is Saturday or Sunday 2.21, Friday 1.32, and Monday through Thursday 1. Backup of a nurse midwife, Monday through Thursday, is 0.71. Do not add the inpatient number and the OB number together unless someone is actually taking both. The article’s sample spreadsheet keeps them in different columns.

The column they label “Sat, Sun, Mon and Thu call” is 6.34 RVUs. The day values 2.17 + 2.17 + 1 + 1 are 6.34. That column is four days, not a seven-day week.

They then multiply shifts by the RVU and divide by FTE. The article prints this example for a fictitious “Dr. A”: “(8 shifts × 6.34 RVUs) + (2 days × 1.0 RVU) = 53 total RVUs; 53 total call RVUs/.80 FTE = 66 adjusted call RVUs.” Eight times 6.34 is 50.72. Plus 2 is 52.72, which rounds to the 53 they print. 53 divided by 0.80 is 66.25, which they print as 66. The method is the multiplication and the FTE division. The rounding is theirs.

The article also says a weekend is harder than a weeknight in a survey it cites, not in the UNC vote. It says 90 percent of physicians would not take more call for more money, that primary care physicians ranked night call 2.29 and weekend call 3.07 on a 5-point scale, and that those physicians thought call was worth about $226 on weekdays and $862 for a 48-hour weekend. The footnotes are The Physician’s Advisory, September 2000 and October 2000. The dollars are that survey, as the 2002 article reports it. They are not a 2026 rate.

Shapes the FPM article names

Before the RVU vote, the article lists ways a group can arrange call. It says any of them could be scored with call RVUs, and that the scheme matters less than people agreeing it is fair. These are the options it prints, not a recommendation from us:

• Each physician takes call every nth day, regardless of weekends.
• Each physician takes call every nth weeknight plus every nth weekend.
• Each physician takes call for an entire week every nth week.
• Each physician covers his or her own call during the week but takes weekend call every nth weekend.

It also lists variations: rounding on your own inpatients unless you are out of town, a hospitalist for after-hours inpatient care, a nurse call service, a resident service under supervision, and a separate obstetrics schedule. Those are named so they are not later attributed to the tables. The tables below are only the second bullet: weeknights on one rotation, weekends on another.

A worked month, Physicians Practice weights only

January 4 through January 31, 2027. That is four weeks, Monday through Sunday. The weights are Woodcock’s example: a weekday 1, a weekend day 2, a holiday 5. The only holiday from the seven that start as Yes on the holiday page, inside this window, is Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Monday, January 18, 2027. It is scored as 5, not as a weekday 1.

Four people, one person each calendar day, in order P1, P2, P3, P4, then P1 again. January 4 is a Monday and goes to P1.

That is the first week only, so you can see the weights land. The other three weeks follow the same order. Points for all 28 days:

The spread is 4 points. Equal nights would be 7 days each, and they are, because 28 divides by 4. Equal days are not equal points. P3 has Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is 5 instead of 1, and that is worth four extra points before weekends are counted.

One move, using only the example weights. Sunday, January 10 is a weekend day, worth 2, and the straight rotation gave it to P3. P3 has the most points (13). P1 is tied for the least, at 9, with P2 and P4. The day goes to P1, the earliest of those seats. P3 goes from 13 to 11. P1 goes from 9 to 11. The spread goes from 4 points to 2. P2 stays at 9. P4 stays at 9. A holiday is worth 5, so this one weekend day does not erase a holiday. January 18 stays where the rotation put it.

Twelve weeks, groups of 4, 5, and 6

Monday, January 4, 2027, through Sunday, March 28, 2027. Twelve weeks. Weeknights here means Monday through Friday, which is “weekday” in the Physicians Practice example, not the UNC “Monday through Thursday.” Friday is 1 point unless you decide Friday is the FPM “Friday with Saturday morning clinic,” which is 1.73, and this table does not.

Weekends are Saturday and Sunday as a block, given to one person: week 1 to P1, week 2 to P2, and so on. That is “every nth weekend” from the list above, with n equal to the size of the group. The weeknight list is separate, and it also starts at P1. In week 1 the same person can be on a weekday and on the weekend. That is two lists, not one walk through the seven days.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 18, falls on a Monday, so it stays in the weeknight column and scores 5. No other holiday from that seven-holiday list falls in these twelve weeks.

Group of 4

Swipe the table if it runs past the edge of the screen.

Spread from highest to lowest: 4 points. Twelve weekend blocks divide by 4, so each person has the same number of Saturday–Sunday blocks.

Group of 5

Swipe the table if it runs past the edge of the screen.

Spread from highest to lowest: 8 points. A plain rotation leaves that gap. The free call schedule generator spreads weekdays, weekends and holidays separately for any month, so nobody ends more than one ahead. Twelve weekend blocks do not divide by 5. 2 people have one extra block, and they are the earlier seats.

Group of 6

Swipe the table if it runs past the edge of the screen.

Spread from highest to lowest: 4 points. Twelve weekend blocks divide by 6, so each person has the same number of Saturday–Sunday blocks.

A plain every-nth-night grid, without these weights, is on the 1 in 4 page.

Sources, opened November 10, 2026

• aafp.org/fpm/2002/0600/p31. Daugird, call RVUs. Inpatient 2.17 / 1.73 / 1, OB 2.21 / 1.32 / 1, nurse-midwife backup 0.71, the Dr. A equation, and the list of call schemes. Fetched that morning. The .html form redirects here.
• physicianspractice.com/view/pearls-making-call-duty-fair. Woodcock, July 15, 2006. The 1 / 2 / 5 example.
• callwellapp.com, fetched 08:09 GMT. Pro is $299/year or $29.99/month. Free for up to 3. Annual trial is 3 months. Monthly has no trial.