Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical students disease

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep; The Land 19:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Medical students disease

Neologism? Sceptre ^(Talk) 16:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

_{Good question! In the vernacular, it is almost used as a catch phrase List_of_catch_phrases between people who know/share the insight. But I don't think the sentiment is of resent origine... I would not be surprised if the ancient Egyptians had an equivalent term when referring to their nuevo cranial trepanners. Like they thought they needed a hole in the head!!!! Oh sorry; I just could not resist that!} --Aspro 22:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I just found a 1908 reference to the phenomenon—not the phrase—but I'll bet you're right and that it's older than that. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete or Transwiki if someone can show wide use. --Pboyd04 16:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not 100% sure "medical students' disease" is what it's called, but something can be made of this. It's a well-known phenomenon. For decades it's been proverbial that medical students imagine they are experiencing the symptoms of diseases that they read about. The article could definitely be a keeper if anyone actually wanted to do any work on it. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Not a neologism. If kept, move to Medical student's disease. A Google Books search turns up a book which in turn contains a 1964 reference, below. Assuming the reference is valid, to me, that nails it: it's not a neologism, it's recognized in medical literature, it was called specifically "Medical student's disease" at least as far back as 1964.

Woods, SM, Natterson, J. Silverman J: Medical student's disease: hypochondriasis in medical education. J. Med. Educ. 41:785-790 (1966).

_{unsigned (probably accidentally) Comment and Reference from Dpbsmith --CastAStone 23:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC) Yeah, thanks. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}

• _{Merge with Hypochondria as the title of the article seems demotic and not established in the literature. -- (aeropagitica)  17:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}

_{I've now found three references in "the literature" that use the specific phrase "medical student's disease." Well, OK, sometimes it's a possessive plural, "medical students' disease." The convention is to use the most common name, so if kept, demotic or not that's where it should go, with redirects as needed from from nosophobia, hypochondriasis of medical students, medicalstudentitis, etc. Hodges (2004) (see citation in article) has a section which opens:}

_{Medical Students' Disease}

_{A similar emergence of the body in the medical classroom is illustrated by the so-called "medical students' disease" literature. This "disease" was defined as follows: "Medical students' disease occurs when, in the process of studying an illness, medical students become overly focused on their own bodily symptoms and may falsely believe that they in fact have the illness being studied" ... the first descriptions of medical students' disease appeared in the 1960s.}

_{Dpbsmith (talk) 18:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}

• _{Comment I always just assumed this phenomenon was an adjunct of the widely accepted 'premed's aren't very bright' theorem, perhaps a merge is in order--63.22.94.162 17:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}

• _{Keep It should be categorised under something like psychology (as opposed to psychiatry) as its a normal response.}

_{At the moment though, it reads a little rough but its a good start as it puts it into context. Don't merge with hypochondria as one could argue that there not quite the same thing. Being a commonly observed (and experienced) phenomena means: that this article has every right to be taken seriously.--Aspro 19:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}

• _{Strong keep. Very well known. -- JJay 23:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}
• _{Keep As per Dpbsmith --CastAStone 23:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)}
• _{Keep: nothing but anecdotal evidence, but this is frequently discussed in my contacts with docs and med students. --Justin Eiler 00:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)}

_{The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.}