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.