The subject of the research project is the understanding and the advanced (tactical and operational) planning of physicians in high-cost areas (i.e., the operating rooms). Physicians are seen as a precious resource in the planning process. Many hospitals, and especially university hospitals, must deal with different staff experience levels when scheduling medical doctors. However, hiring physicians has become a problem in Germany; in particular, highly qualified specialists have turned out to be a scarce resource. Consequently, efficient planning and scheduling of physicians is crucial as they are currently considered one of the major bottlenecks in the care-providing process. The operating room represents the high-cost area in the hospital which determines the demand for physician planning and scheduling. Therefore, we consider the operating theater as a second scarce resource. Due to the operating theater’s high investment and the respective high operational cost, it is necessary to run it at a sufficiently high utilization. To reach this aim, good-quality schedules for the operating rooms are crucial. In contrast, in many healthcare organizations, a specialized health professional creates physician rosters and operating room schedules manually, which not only consumes the time of a highly qualified medical specialist but is also error-prone, expensive, and often not feasible from a legal point of view. This is a joint project with Prof. Dr. Jens O. Brunner (University of Siegen).