ARE YOU SUFFERING FROM THIS DISEASE?

1. Do you think that you have a very bad memory and you frequently forget whatever you read?

2.Do you sometimes feel that a simple headache which you sometimes suffer from is due to a brain tumor?

if your answer is yes for any of the above question, you are probably suffering from a disease called ...."medical student syndrome"

Have you ever discovered a "lump" on your neck or groin after reading about Hodgkin's lymphoma? Or have you ever experienced a pulsatin g headache & nausea suddenly after reading the chapter on brain tumors?

In retrospect, I could pinpoint the exact moment when my medical student syndrome began: it was when i was in 2nd year MS:right after reading about the various symptoms of brain tumors. During the lecture I learnt that there are two pathognomic features of brain tumors one is early morning headach & projectile vomitting. Right after that lecture I began to feel the headache right around my occiput and i started to worry that I have a tumor inside my brain .But there was no vomitting, so i was convinced that it was just a simple headache. But to my surprise next morning i had few episodes of vomitting in early motning. Now i was sure that a tumor is for sure growing very rapidly in my head.

I first went to the staff clinic at my hospital. After examining my fundus the doctor said there is probably nothing to worry, Unconvinced I went to a radiologist at my hospital. He did an CTscan for me. He was also quite convinced I didn't have anything that looked suspicious on the scan. Still unconvinced i got a MRI done, my frined who was doing PG in radiology told me that although there is nothing abnormal in the scan, a better opinion by a senior radiologist should be sought, which is possible only in the morning since it was almost 9 pm.Then I began running through a list of differential diagnoses of deadly diseases and the next serious disease coming to my mind was migrain. Worst thing which happened to me that night was that i could not sleep even a single minute and i searched every possible textbook and internet about the causes of headache and vomitting. The concequence of deprived sleep was nothing but a more severe headache, as if some one is hammering my head, along with headache i also developed vomitting due to sever gastritis. Now i was sure that there is tumor in my brain for sure which my friend could not figure out. I was deperately waiting for the senior radiologist to come so that he could tell me how life expectancy i have. Finally the radiologist arrived and he assured me that there is nothing to worry. Still unconvinced i went to a neurosurgeon to show the scan, he too assured me that there is nothing to worry and the scan is absolutely normal.

This whole process bothered me for about a month but I was anxious for a few more months. My anxiety went down finally when I realized that it was a t.ension headache. A friend of mine later sent me a link about the medical student syndrome. which was exactly the same as my case. At that point, I realized there was nothing wrong with my body and all that fear and irrational behavior was explainable.

I think "medical student syndrome" is a natural reaction as we are confronted with the shocking reality of the multitude of diseases that could happen to the human body. Different medical students react to this confrontation differently. Some are not affected at all but I think a small number like me went through this "syndrome" in a more severe form. If I have learnt anything from this experience it would be the cliched notion "common diseases occur commonly." .