When we keep learning about symptoms of new diseases everyday we may suddenly feel like Do I have this disease?
Here is an example of my incident :
Share your experiences as well !
Medical Student Syndrome is a common condition where medical students, after learning about various diseases, start feeling they have the same symptoms. It’s a type of health anxiety caused by over-awareness. It usually fades with time and self-awareness.
Whenever I get gastritis my mind jumps into what if its an Unstable Angina!! LOL!
all the time… Whenever something happens to me
Good one
Reading the pathophysiology subject makes me mentally sick
I had a very strange sensation beside my right upper molar tooth and day by day it was like the there was a bump which is only getting bigger by each day and at the time i was studying about cancers and ulcers including thise of mouth and i was really worried what is what i am studying it is that only, later i got to know that my wisdom tooth coming lol
This happenes so often. We read about symptoms of a particular disorder and its like our mind tells our body to show a symptom so we relate to it and overthink lol
Indeed, as medical professionals, we often tend to overanalyse our symptoms and attempt to associate them with unlikely diseases or conditions.
Being a dentist when ever i see patients with cavities or anything, I go home and check mine.
That’s a good terminology
And i think every medico can connect with this.
The other day, I noticed something blue on two of my fingers, and I thought it was a bruise or some sort of skin issue, like cyanosis. I started worrying about it, but later that evening, it disappeared.
It’s common among medical students. We evaluate the symptoms in our body and diagnose it as a disease. Sometimes, it came to correct diagnosis, sometimes it can be an intuition.
Yeah that happens quite often with me.
Whenever i read or learn about any disease the next day i start correlating it with my symptoms
every time , all diseases and symptoms are retable
I can relate to this. Especially when you are reading late night all alone. Haha
Especially happens while studying psychiatry
Totally get what you mean, it happens to a lot of us.
The more we learn about different illnesses, the more we start wondering. Your example about OCD really makes sense. During stressful times like exams, it’s super common to develop habits like frequent handwashing but that doesn’t always mean its OCD. Same with a mouth ulcer — our mind jumps to all kinds of conclusions but most of the time, it’s something small and harmless.
It’s completely normal to have these thoughts — the key is just not letting them take over. And if they ever do, talking to someone can really help.
When I read about anxiety disorders, I recalled nights I couldn’t sleep before deadlines. Once, after a headache, I feared a tumor—Google didn’t help! Our minds spiral quickly.
When I learned about health anxiety, I realized I’d once convinced myself a mild chest pain was serious. Another time, a twitchy eye had me fearing neurological issues all day.