Collier, R. (2008). Imagined illnesses can cause real problems for medical students. CMAJ, 178(7), 820.
The first symptom Jessica McPherson noticed was a weakness in her arms. Then her muscles began to twitch. She feared the worst, suspecting it might be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig disease. But her family doctor provided a much less grim diagnosis: medical school syndrome. The tendency of medical students to diagnose themselves with diseases they are studying is ...