The popular sitcom Seinfeld may have finished in 1998, but its eccentric characters have found new life as a teaching aide for medical students.

Professor Anthony Tobia teaches his students about psychiatric disorders by making them appraise the characters' quirks in an exercise dubbed "Psy-feld", which he has run as a mandatory part of his course since 2009.

Third and fourth year students at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey are required to watch two episodes a week and then discuss the behaviours in each.

Tobia has categorised all 180 episodes and every character in a database, nearly all of which can be used in teaching, he says.

When you get these friends together the dynamic is such that it literally creates a plot: Jerrys obsessive compulsive traits combined with Kramers schizoid traits, with Elaines inability to forge meaningful relationships and with George being egocentric.

It isn't just the principal characters who have interesting minds. Tobia has cited five of Elaine's boyfriends in a paper about the themes of delusional disorder, and told the website NJ.com that the show's antagonist Newman was "very sick".

Third year student Marlene Wang said that using a television programme brought teaching to life: In this way, it just gives you a more solid picture of the pathology rather than just giving you words.

Medicine has featured in several memorable Seinfeld scenes, most notably in its 60th episode The Junior Mint in which Jerry accidentally drops a sweet inside a body cavity watch how in this clip.

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Medical students use Seinfeld episodes to learn about psychiatric disorders