AP File photo. You were doing medical school-level work back in the day when you watched Seinfeld.

Every Monday and Thursday, third- and fourth-year medical students in a New Brunswick, New Jersey hospitals psychiatric rotation are assigned to watch a syndicated episode of Seinfeld, NJ.com writes today.

Anthony Tobia, an associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, created the teaching tool to help medical students recognize psychiatric indicators.

Tobia is so sold on the concept hes created a database of every Seinfeld episode and its teaching points. All 180 episodes and nearly every character in the series can be used for Psy-feld, he said.

For instance, five of Elaines boyfriends are the topic of an academic paper Tobia penned explaining how the men display core character traits that match the themes of delusional disorder.

Other characters, like Jerrys foil, Newman, are very sick, Tobia said.

Newmans sense of self, his meaning in life, is to ensure that he frustrates Jerry, Tobia said. We actually have talked about Newman in that context and related him to Erik in The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom, while he starts out as being the tutor to the Prima Donna, actually has his life change and he is bent on revenge and that becomes who he is and thats Newman.

You start watching and youre like, What is going on with George? one student said.

Another said shes getting more practical information out of watching Seinfeld than she is out of textbooks on psychiatry.

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts where he was vice president of programming for Berkshire Broadcasting Company. Previously, he was an editor at the RKO Radio network in New York, and WHDH Radio in Boston. He was the founder of MPR News website.

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Seinfeld as a teacher of psychiatry