Residency programs
Family medicine residency programs scheduling software
This is written for fM residency program coordinators and chief residents. Scheduling here commonly runs into balancing a resident's own continuity-clinic patients against inpatient or OB call obligations - the kind of problem a shared spreadsheet doesn't solve on its own. Below: the shift patterns programs like this typically use, and how RotaBay's generator handles the parts that create the most friction.
ACGME duty-hour floor
80-Hour Weekly Maximum §6.20.
Clinical and educational work hours (the modern term for what used to be called 'duty hours') must be limited to no more than 80 hours per week, averaged over a rolling four-week period. This includes all in-house clinical and educational activities, clinical work done from home, and all moonlighting (internal and external).
One Day Free in Seven (averaged over 4 weeks) §6.21.b.
Residents must be scheduled for a minimum of one day in seven free of clinical work and required education, averaged over four weeks. At-home call cannot be assigned on these free days. A 'day off' is defined elsewhere in the ACGME Glossary of Terms as one continuous 24-hour period free of all administrative, clinical, and educational activities; consecutive days off ('golden weekends') are explicitly permitted, not precluded, by this rule.
Applies to ACGME-accredited programs only; informational, not compliance advice.
Check a schedule against every ACGME duty-hour rule →Typical patterns
How this schedule is usually built
80-hour week, averaged over 4 weeks (ACGME)
SourcedLike all ACGME-accredited residencies, family medicine programs must keep resident clinical and educational work hours at or below 80 per week, averaged over a rolling four-week period.
Source: acgme.orgX+Y ambulatory-inpatient block model
Common patternFamily medicine programs commonly alternate inpatient/specialty rotation blocks with dedicated continuity-clinic weeks so residents keep a longitudinal patient panel while still rotating through inpatient, OB, and subspecialty months.
OB / labor-and-delivery call rotations
Common patternPrograms with an OB training requirement typically layer a separate labor-and-delivery call schedule on top of the resident's regular clinic and inpatient rotations.
Night float for inpatient and ICU months
Common patternInpatient medicine and ICU rotations within family medicine training frequently use a night-float structure rather than traditional overnight call.
Shift structure
A typical week's shift types
RotaBay
How RotaBay handles it
Balancing a resident's own continuity-clinic patients against inpatient or OB call obligations
A published who's-on page
Every schedule publishes to a no-login page the whole team can check from a phone. Disputes over who's actually on the hook end before they start.
Fairness disputes over who covers OB call on top of an already-busy inpatient block
Fairness-weighted generation
Nights, weekends and holidays carry a higher fairness weight than a plain day shift, so the generator spreads the unpopular slots evenly across the group instead of always landing on the same few people.
Last-minute clinic coverage gaps when a resident is pulled onto an inpatient service
Swap requests with an audit trail
When someone needs to trade a shift, they request it from the published page and it's applied with a full audit trail - no more chasing a manual spreadsheet edit at 11pm.
FAQ
Common questions
Residents typically spend a run of weeks ('X') on inpatient, OB, or subspecialty rotations, followed by a dedicated ambulatory week ('Y') focused on their own continuity clinic panel, cycling through the academic year.
Related specialties
A closer look at the pattern
A dedicated night shift covers weeknights while day teams work weekdays; weekend call covers the gap.
Generate a family medicine residency programs schedule free
Set your shifts and rules, RotaBay builds a fair, rule-compliant schedule in seconds - free to start, no card.