Path tourette's

Part of our pathology course involves a lab 3 days a week, in which we present slides of different diseased states of organs and tissues. With every slide, there are specific details to look for, clinical signs and symptoms that a patient is likely to present with, and the mechanism by which this disease develops. I’ve noticed throughout medical school, that whenever we’re given slides/pictures to recognize, if they can be deduced to resembling some sort of food, it’s supposed to help us remember. But, it has also bred a med school syndrome cleverly coined by a fellow group member as “path tourette’s”. Now, when we see certain slides or read key points that may refer to a visual of the disease, instead of properly identifying the problem or organism causing the disease, some of us begin to inappropriately blurt out the food item instead. So yesterday's microbiology lab went a little like this:
Key words from clinical description: HIV patient, bibasilar crackles, with diffuse interstitial infiltrate.
My answer: Cotton candy! Cotton candy!
Appropriate answer: Pneumocystis jirovecki

That’s what I meant to say, but it was the path tourette’s that made me blurt out the first response (the interstitial infliltrate in the lung resulting from infection with this fungus apparently looks like pink cotton candy).

Just as only a mother can comprehend what her 2 year old child is saying, we all understand each other when one of us gets a tic every now and then.