Mexico Medical Student |

I was gathering all the notes scattered about from our pathology exam yesterday, starting the process to get ready for our partial exam in pharm on Monday (with a comprehensive final three days later–go figure). In doing so, I came across an unintentional joke our visiting professor made while lecturing on the pathology of the male reproductive system.

To set this up for the non-medical readers, a few basic points on anatomy. We have a blood-brain barrier formed by special capillaries that don’t allow any passage to/from the cerebrospinal fluid and brain of anything from/to the circulatory system except those things which normally diffuse across all cell membranes (O₂, CO₂, alcohol (whee!)) and channels/pores for other ubiquitous nutrients, like glucose, sodium, potassium, etc. It’s slightly more complicated than that, but that’s most of it for sure. A very similar thing exists in the testes, believe it or not, and separates the goings-on in the gonads from the blood circulating around it.

While talking about hematogenous spread of metastases from testicular cancer, there were some special points made regarding this by the professor with respect to the “blood-brain barrier” that exists in the testes. The prof turned beet red and apologized profusely, swearing it was an innocent mistake, not an insult. I laughed out loud, but as I kept looking at most of the class (I sit in the back, like a good slacker), it was clear that not everyone got it, or were too distracted/asleep to care. Sad, because for all the cracks made about men thinking “with their other head,” it was a classic moment.