Interesting Medical Thingys

For the past 3 months I have been mainly studying. I would have just finished the Reproductive Block since the last time I posted about school. And since then I have finished (as of this past Friday!!) the Musculo-skeletal Cutaneous Block, which included Rheumatology, Dermatology, Orthopedics, and the anatomy of the skin/muscles/bones. Quite the overwhelming block. To get a sense of the block imagine having to know every single muscle in the arm and leg (take my word for it, there are a lot). And then for each of those, you have to know its arterial blood supply, its venous drainage, its innervation, its origin, its insertion, its function, clinical syndromes associated with pathologies of that muscle, if it is involved in any motor or reflex tests for the spinal level that innervates it, the location of the muscle as it courses through the arm/leg, etc, etc. Out of these 100s of hours of mainly boring material, I'll try to find some bits of information that would/might be interesting to a non-medical student:


1. Girls on the birthcontrol pill do not get PMS.

The pill keeps hormone levels fairly constant throughout the menstrual cycle, so the dip in hormones that causes fertile women to get "PMS" does not occur in women on the pill. This can only be attributable to regular grumpy/bitchyness. I can understand a "PMS-like-syndrome" occuring during the 1 week off the pill, but a "PRE-menstrual-syndrome" doesn't not physiologically occur.

2. When you flex your bicep, the big buldge in your arm is not caused by the biceps. It is a different muscle underneath the biceps that causes it to bulge.

I suppose this is more of a technicality. When you flex your arm, it is the "brachialis muscle" that does most of the work. This muscle lies underneath the biceps, originating from the humerus in your arm, and inserting into the ulna in your forearm. Your biceps isn't actually the main muscle involved in flexing the arm. The main function of the biceps is supination of the forearm (i.e. turning your hand from palm-side down to palm-side up).

3. The testicles are never biopsied to test for testicular cancer.

I just watched the mockumentary Fubar the other night. In this movie the main character gets his testicles biopsied to test for cancer. In real life you would just cut out any suspicious lump. The act of taking a biopsy from the scotum would rupture a rich lymphatic supply and would cause any cancer present to spread all over the place. Interestingly they do biopsy the lymph nodes for cancer staging, but the lymph nodes that drain the testicles are located quite high up in your abdomen towards your back. This is because the testicles originally form much higher up in your body, and then descend downwards as you develop embryologically, eventually switching places with your kidneys.

4. The medical term for the "pinky finger" is an even funnier word: "digiti minimi".

And that's pronouced "Digi-tee Mini-Me". And when you say that you have to stick your pinky in your mouth just like Dr. Evil.

5. The name for the ligament that secures the testicles to the bottom of the scrotum is the "gubernaculum". That word is just fun to say.

New Years '06

You might think this picture was from New Years 1972, but it was in fact from New Years 2006.

I ended up going to this laid back party/jam-session at a friend's of Mark's. It was good times. Apart from the purple cloud of smoke. I thought it was funny how we lost track of time around midnight, and then suddenly people were yelling for everyone to come upstairs for the countdown. When we got upstairs, somebody asked what time it was. Someone else said "12:03". So everybody just started yelling: "10!!! 9!!!! 8!!!!...". Laid back indeed ;)

X-mas Photography

This is a really cool picture of Carla I took this past December. This is the Corona LRT (Subway) Station in downtown Edmonton. That was a fun night too. Carla and I had decided to walk down to see the Christmas light display they had put up at the Legislature. Only problem was that it was -22 degrees celcius!! After walking through the light display, it was so cold that we decided instead of walking all the way home, we would just go catch the sub. Only problem being neither I nor Carla knew where the closest station was. We ended up walking further and further downtown for about 20 minutes until we came across a subway station. Turns out we had walked past 2 closer stations. Oh well, it made for a good picture. Just before taking this picture I had cleaned a tear off of Carla's glasses. A single tear drop was frozen solid to her lens. Crazy Edmonton.

Here is the best pic from the Christmas light display:

Three Month Blackout

Holy crap!! It's been 3 months exactly and I haven't posted anything. I apologize to my semi-regular readers. Life has become increasing busy as of late. Let me see if I can find some good pictures and any interesting stories that go along with them, so I can fill you guys in on what you missed...