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Interesting facts I picked up in medicine

So, amidst the very bleak existence of lectures, tutorials and placements where we are required to rote learn muscles, attachments, innervations, syndromes, therapies and other details that soon lose their appeal after we're forced to memorise it for the billionth time, I thought I'd make a lighter thread to remind us that alot of medical physiology, disease or phenomena ARE fascinating.

So, I thought I'd make a thread for current med students to drop in with an interesting fact they picked up related to our course, something not necessarily related to exams, but something you just went "wow, that's amazing"

Aimed at all levels, and feel free to correct.

So, my first little tidbit is that cancer cells, who continually mutate in order to survive, imitate hypoxia, making the local cells think they're hypoxic. They do this so the body secretes VEGF, which your body needs to make new blood vessels. By doing this, cancer cells use VEGF to create its own blood supply and can then use it to grow and metastasise elsewhere.

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An energy imbalance of +81KCal/day (=one chocolate digestive) would lead to a weight gain of over 4.5 kilograms a year on average. Yet despite most people eating a varied diet every day with an ever-changing energy content and a differing energy expenditure, most people remain in energy balance over the long term and stay a stable weight. Despite the obesity crisis, it's important to recognise that strong regulatory mechanisms for metabolism and energy balance exists and, for most people, work rather well without us ever really considering what a feat that is.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 2
Sometimes trauma patients with extremely raised intracranial pressures will require a decompressive craniectomy - part of the skull is removed to reduce the pressure on the brain. Sometimes this piece of skull (commonly pretty much a full hemicalvarium) is preserved by placing it in the abdominal wall, to be replaced at a later date.

TL;DR SOMETIMES IF YOU HIT YOUR HEAD REAL BAD THEY TAKE OFF HALF YOUR SKULL AND STICK IT IN YOUR STOMACH FOR SAFEKEEPING

One of the few "surely you're joking" moments I've had in medicine
Original post by Ghotay
Sometimes trauma patients with extremely raised intracranial pressures will require a decompressive craniectomy - part of the skull is removed to reduce the pressure on the brain. Sometimes this piece of skull (commonly pretty much a full hemicalvarium) is preserved by placing it in the abdominal wall, to be replaced at a later date.

TL;DR SOMETIMES IF YOU HIT YOUR HEAD REAL BAD THEY TAKE OFF HALF YOUR SKULL AND STICK IT IN YOUR STOMACH FOR SAFEKEEPING

One of the few "surely you're joking" moments I've had in medicine


And I thought reattaching digits to skin to preserve a blood supply was whack.
Also (as reading through my notes now) the future antibody therapies (which use animal antibodies) will be coming from.....not rats.....not monkeys....but camels and sharks.

Nanobodies.
Why don't ants get sick? They have their little anty bodies
Original post by newttella
Why don't ants get sick? They have their little anty bodies


My friend saw that thread and has been randomly reading me jokes from it constantly for the last 2 days :lol:
Personally ever since I discovered rotationplasty I still can't get over that this exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njJUcTbR2SY

I mean so awesome and such a cool functional idea, but looking at it messes with my mind.
Original post by Zargabaath
My friend saw that thread and has been randomly reading me jokes from it constantly for the last 2 days :lol:

You mean reddit? ;D or somewhere else? :0
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 9
A female neonate can undergo PV bleeding (so-called 'pseudomenses'), caused by withdrawal of maternal hormones on the neonetal uterus.
Original post by newttella
You mean reddit? ;D or somewhere else? :0


Reddit :tongue:
We were playing a game and through the entire evening he was just cracking these awful jokes, it was so annoying yet somehow hilarious :rofl:
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Zargabaath
Reddit :tongue:
We were playing a game and through the entire evening he was just cracking these awful jokes, it was so annoying yet somehow hilarious :rofl:

Hey fair enough. Sometimes crappy jokes can be nice ;D keep at it :smile:)))
Original post by seaholme
Personally ever since I discovered rotationplasty I still can't get over that this exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njJUcTbR2SY

I mean so awesome and such a cool functional idea, but looking at it messes with my mind.


Holy crap, backward foot is freaking me out, it just looks so........strange

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Moro Reflex. Not so much because of its peculiar evolutionary origin, but more because its funny to elicit :biggrin:
endometriosis in the nasal mucosa can cause cyclic epistaxis
Original post by nexttime
Moro Reflex. Not so much because of its peculiar evolutionary origin, but more because its funny to elicit :biggrin:


Baby Helenia does this when he gets put in the bath. It's adorable!

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Reply 16
Original post by Veronica10001
endometriosis in the nasal mucosa can cause cyclic epistaxis


I am in love with this fact
Original post by nexttime
Moro Reflex. Not so much because of its peculiar evolutionary origin, but more because its funny to elicit :biggrin:


My favourite is the "grabbing a tree branch" reflex, which name I've forgotten.

EDIT: I believe it's the palmar grasp reflex
(edited 7 years ago)
A study in 1944 in the Netherlands (called Hongerwinter) found that mothers in their second/third trimester (after 14 weeks), who lived in an area blockaded from food supplies by the Nazis, gave birth to children who were underweight, shorter and had higher rates of certain diseases (Call these Children A). However their children were perfectly normal. (Children B) (This makes sense)

Women who were in their FIRST trimester <14wks gave birth to perfectly normal children (Children C)......but THEIR children (Children D) had rates of low birth weight, shorter height and diseases comparable to the Children A.
Original post by That Bearded Man
A study in 1944 in the Netherlands (called Hongerwinter) found that mothers in their second/third trimester (after 14 weeks), who lived in an area blockaded from food supplies by the Nazis, gave birth to children who were underweight, shorter and had higher rates of certain diseases (Call these Children A). However their children were perfectly normal. (Children B) (This makes sense)

Women who were in their FIRST trimester <14wks gave birth to perfectly normal children (Children C)......but THEIR children (Children D) had rates of low birth weight, shorter height and diseases comparable to the Children A.


That's a nice study.

One of my 'favourite' WW2 studies was the Minnesota starvation experiments, showing the psychological effects of starvation and how a lot of what you see in annorexia, the obsession with food, the depression, is driven by the starvation itself.

I like the fact that those with schizophrenia will develop abnormal CT heads. For a lot of people, me included, equating psychological and organic neurological disease is difficult. Its easy to think 'just snap out of it' or alternatively 'they are just like that'. The fact that you can see their brains shrivelling up on a CT is a very graphic sign that that's wrong and that perhaps psychology and neurology should be thought of as more related than they are by many.

Another cool thing: The discovery of using beta blockers to treat haemangiomas i.e. a complete luck finding in a kid being treated for heart failure.
(edited 7 years ago)

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