Anna Müller at the Zurich General Hospital: Tough Times as a Medical Resident

Joerg Dietz

Product #:W37175

Supplier:Ivey

Discipline:Human Resource Management, Organizational Behaviour/Leadership

Setting:Switzerland, 2022

Details:Case (PDF) • 9 pages • 2025-03-03

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Anna Müller was a medical resident in surgery in two Swiss hospitals. The case describes how she dealt with the toxic work environments in these hospitals. In the final scene of the case, a fellow resident shared her decision to change to a different medical track that would align better with having a family. Müller now wondered whether she should also plan for the possibility that her priorities would shift toward family. Through the case, students vicariously face the struggles of a novice in a toxic work environment. Doing so allows them to discuss strategies for handling such a context. Students can also discuss what it would take for bosses to change a toxic environment into a psychologically safe one.

Learning Objectives

This case is mainly intended for master’s level courses in business and medical schools. It can be taught in courses on organizational behaviour and human resource management. The case can also be used in workshops on understanding toxic environments. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to:

Vicariously experience the psychological tensions of a novice employee in a toxic work environment. A key psychological tension arises between wanting to complete training as a critical career step versus maintaining one’s mental and emotional health.
Understand coping strategies for surviving in a toxic work environment, such as reframing, re-examining, redesigning, and retraining (in addition to exiting).
Identify, through the discussion of coping strategies, antecedents of toxic work environments such as the interplay between situational and personal factors.
Explore the perspective of more powerful actors (e.g., head surgeons) and identify why such actors engage in behaviours that contribute to a toxic work environment, what it would take to change such behaviours, and which behaviours might result in a psychologically safe environment.

Anna Müller at the Zurich General Hospital: Tough Times as a Medical Resident

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Learning Objectives