Seinfeld Characters Help Instruct Med Students About Psychiatric Disorders

The AP (1/5) reported that psychiatry professor Anthony Tobia, MD is using a “Psy-feld” teaching tool to instruct medical students at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University about psychiatric disorders. Using the television series Seinfeld, “Tobia has created a database of teaching points from all the show’s episodes.” Medical students in their third and fourth years “are assigned to watch two episodes a week and then gather to discuss the psychopathology demonstrated on each.”

The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger (1/2, Clark) reported that the premise behind “Psy-feld” is that “students have an ‘aha’ moment, the kind that doesn’t come from a PowerPoint presentation, said Tom Draschil, one of the psychiatric department’s chief residents.” Dr. Draschil explained that “the funnier a program is, the more teaching points it has for psychiatry.”

Related Links:

— “AT MED SCHOOL, ‘SEINFELD’ ABOUT MORE THAN NOTHING,” Associated Press, January 2, 2015.

Posted in In The News.