At med school, ‘Seinfeld’ about more than nothing

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – “Seinfeld” may have been a show about nothing, but a psychiatry professor is using it for much more than that.

NJ.com reports that medical students at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital are learning about psychiatric disorders through Dr. Anthony Tobia’s “Psy-feld” teaching tool.

Tobia has created a database of teaching points from all 180 episodes. Third- and fourth-year medical students are assigned to watch two episodes a week and then gather to discuss the psychopathology demonstrated on each.

Tobia diagnoses Jerry Seinfeld’s character as obsessive compulsive, George Costanza as being egocentric and Kramer as schizoid. He says Elaine is unable to forge meaningful relationships and Newman was “very sick.”

Tobia also teaches a course where students live tweet thoughts about characters’ potential psychiatric disorders while watching films like “Fargo.”