The syndrome of the medical student

First clear from your head the idea that a syndrome is a disease characterized by severe deformities and mental retardations and bla bla .. of course there are syndromes as I described but for the most part they are other than that .. So:
A syndrome is a set of clinical signs and symptoms that a patient is likely to present at certain diseases.

Let explain more The syndrome of the medical student of which sometimes I have suffered ;-)

The syndrome of the medical student refers to the tendency of medical students
to self-diagnose in an irrational way the most serious diseases. It is more
a meeting of circumstances than a true pathology.

The syndrome is caused by several factors:

• Learning semiology preceding pathology: Students know the signs of major diseases and syndromes, without sufficient experience of how really this pathology can affect the body.
• Stress associated with emotionally difficult situations and possibly fear of contagion in the workplace.

The syndrome of the medical student should be distinguished from:

• Hypochondria, which is a psychiatric illness making the hypochondriac persuaded to be suffering from sickness, delirious, or morbid fear of catching a disease;
• Self-medication;
• Self-diagnosis, although it is difficult.

The syndrome of the medical student declines as the student get far in its medical curriculum for several reasons: the acquisition of knowledge about the disease;

• Relativization with patients seen at the hospital;
• The psychological resistance;
• Confrontation with reality: he has not got the diseases! (eg other supposed symptoms are absent).

Note that the syndrome of the medical student can be expressed in a negative form: irrational denial of a real disease, because students can not gather all the signs of this disease.