Given a surgeon’s training and their MANY years of school, it goes without saying that they have much more in-depth knowledge about the human body than the average person; however, there are some facts they simply don’t share with others…
That is, until a Redditor recently asked, “Surgeons on Reddit: What weird facts do you know about the human body that you don’t share with anybody?” and thousands of surgeons flooded the comment section with the most surprising things they’ve learned during their tenure. Without further ado, here are 19 of their most insightful facts:
Surgeons, if there are things you know about the human body that most people don’t, feel free to tell us using this anonymous form!
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1.”There is a space, a couple of millimeters between the end of the fallopian tube and the ovary where anything in the fallopian tube (infection, sperm, etc.) can skip the ovary, and take a detour to another place, like your liver.”
“This is why ectopic pregnancies can attach in bizarre places, and STIs can turn into a septic infection that kills you.
I always found it bizarre knowing that sperm can just float around your body.”
2.”You have about the right number of arteries, but you have more veins than you actually need. Veins serve as a reservoir for extra blood, in addition to returning blood to the heart after oxygen delivery.”
3.”When you get bowel surgery of any kind, there’s some degree of stool or succus (digested food before it turns into poop) that will invariably spill or get into the incision. It’s not uncommon for me to do a hemorrhoidectomy and have to rinse the stool off the incision before I suture it closed. Remarkably, a touch of antibiotics during the case and rinsing the incision with saline is almost always enough to prevent an infection.”
“Now, when someone’s colon perforates at home and they try to tough it out for a few days before coming in half dead, they’re gonna have a bad time. IF they survive, they’ll get a colostomy bag. I’ve smelled a lot of horrible things in my tenure: ruptured infected cysts, dead feet, stagnant vomit, but NOTHING is worse than dead colon.
PSA: For the love of God, don’t put off a colonoscopy. Start at 45 years old or 10 years before the age your first-degree relative got colon cancer.”
4.”It’s not exactly an unknown fact, but the brain can shift during surgery. Even when the skull is fixed in place, the brain is soft and mobile, almost like firm tofu.”
“The brain has no pain receptors. Although it processes pain signals from other parts of the body, the brain itself cannot feel pain. That’s why during certain brain surgeries (like awake craniotomies), patients can be fully conscious without feeling pain, even while their skulls are open and brain tissue is being stimulated or removed.
The brain also pulsates in sync with your heartbeat. It’s a rhythmic, constant movement, and it’s actually BEAUTIFUL. Real brain tissue is softer, more fragile, and surprisingly watery. It can be torn or injured just by suction or light pressure.
But what I admire and am astonished the most is that every person’s brain is wired differently. Actual locations of speech, movement, or memory can vary person to person. That’s why we do brain mapping during surgeries. It’s pretty cool, like exploring the unknown, and it shows how unique humans are.”
5.”Skin is surprisingly tough. Using a new scalpel blade, you need a fair amount of force to make an incision. Before my first opening, my attending warned me about not using enough force: ‘No hesitation marks!'”
“The best way I can describe it is this: Take a thick steak and try to make a straight cut 0.25-0.5 inches deep with a paring knife in a single move, using only one hand without bracing the steak.
It’s harder than a vertical cut to a thick broccoli stem, but softer than a carrot.”
6.”During a knee replacement, the medical team completely dislocates your knee, puts the knee cap to the side, and starts measuring and cutting. During tibia replacement, this part assists in pushing the tibia forward so you can apply components accurately.”
“During hip replacement, the entire hip is dislocated, and if it’s an old posterior approach, your femoral head is sticking out of the wound at roughly 45 degrees.
When you get a joint replacement revision, all bets are off because there is so much pulling, hammering, drilling, etc. If it’s a hip, you can sometimes lose so much blood that you need a transfusion.
During abdominal surgery if you are reconnecting a patient’s colon, the surgeon will stick a special instrument up your butt to staple the rectum to the intestine. Yes, staple.”
7.”It’s not exactly a weird fact, but it’s odd nonetheless: When you harvest organs from organ donors, the premise is that, although most of the body is ‘alive,’ the patient’s brain is dead. This means that, when you open the cavities to take out the organs, there’s blood coming in and out of them, as the heart is still beating.”
“So, the first thing you do when preparing for harvest is to manually stop the heart, which generally means puncturing the atrium with a scalpel. When you do that, you quite literally watch as the heart dies — it keeps trying to do its job, it struggles, it starts flailing, every single one of its muscle fibers doing its best to keep the blood flowing, and then it stops.
It’s an incredibly humbling and somber experience, and it gives you a whole new perspective on organ transplants and how important and noble it can be.”
8.”Surgical nurse here: Sometimes when babies are wedged into the pelvis I have to go up through the vagina to push the baby back in.”
“At the same time, the surgeon is going into the C-section incision with their hand to pull the baby’s head out.
It gives me the heebie jeebies when our fingers meet inside.”
9.”It’s possible to speak again after having your entire voice box removed via a prosthesis connecting your trachea to your esophagus.”
“Also, after removing a large portion of your jaw, we can take your leg bone (fibula) and shape it into a jaw that is then connected to the remaining bone and blood vessels in your face/neck, giving you a functional jaw after cutting a large portion out.
It’s even possible for these patients to get dental implants and look/function very well.”
10.”Not a doctor, but my surgeon told me that you don’t really have to put organs back in place after a surgery, within reason. Obviously, they don’t put intestines up by the throat or something, but as long as all the organs are generally in the right area, they kind of move themselves back to their correct places after a while.”
“I found this out because my laparoscopic surgery became very invasive after my surgeon found a tumor was growing around a major blood vessel. Apparently, he had to shove my intestines and kidney out of the way while removing it.”
11.”Your bowels will get ‘stunned’ following major surgery, especially abdominal surgery, for a period of time, which is why it’s important to know if a patient has passed gas or pooped.”
“For those of you who have not had surgery before, you will be asked if you’ve farted multiple times afterward.”
12.”Ovaries can develop tumors that are known as Dermoid cysts, which can contain hair, teeth, and bone.”
13.”There aren’t many occasions I get to share this: A colostomy is when the intestines are hooked to an open port on the skin, bypassing some portion of the lower digestive tract. There are a lot of reasons this might need to be done, and for varying durations.”
“Some people have colostomy bags for years, and this is where things can get interesting: Your rectum produces mucus to help smooth your bowel movements along. Even if there are no passengers on the train, your body keeps greasing those tracks. Since there’s nothing to move the mucus, it just hangs out — sometimes for years, sometimes for decades.
And in that time, it becomes something like a human pearl, by roughly the same mechanisms that pearls are formed in oysters. They can be very uncomfortable for patients, depending on their size and location. It’s not an uncommon problem, and it’s fixable.
I’ve seen two that were roughly the size of baseballs. When one of them was cut open, it looked like a jawbreaker candy with multiple layers. They’re dense, hefty, and have a little give near the skin.
TLDR: humans can make pearls.”
14.”You can technically be awake during surgery with your eyes open and feel absolutely nothing — if the right nerves are blocked.”
“I had a patient quietly watch us work through a reflective monitor while we cut into their leg — no reaction. That stuck with me.”
15.”At 25mmhg of pressure, your body overrides the control of your external anal spincter (the one you use to voluntarily poop, there is the internal component that relaxes involuntarily) and then…you poop yourself.”
“It’s a protective mechanism to keep you from perforating your bowels.”
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16.”I work closely with thoracic surgery, especially with lung transplants. Your native lungs receive blood flow from two sources: Your pulmonary arteries (through which blood passes en route to the lungs to receive oxygen) as well as your bronchial arteries (which come off the aorta). If you receive a lung transplant, the current standard of care is that only the pulmonary artery circulation is reconnected, and the transplanted lungs lose all bronchial artery blood flow.”
“It is miraculous that the lungs are able to survive on this single source of blood flow! I will say that this strategy may be evolving given the high rate of rejection in lung transplant.”
17.”The human body can still reflexively move or twitch during surgery even when fully anesthetized, which can be unsettling if you’re not used to it.”
18.”Your sinuses (in particular your maxillary sinus, which sits just under your eye) are HUGE empty space cavities. I’ve approximated that you could squeeze about three grapes into each maxillary sinus. But normally, they are just cavities of air in your head (and yes, that’s where a ton of snot collects and drains from).”
19.”Holding a beating heart is continually the most humbling and incredible feeling. It really makes you appreciate the spontaneity, strength, and fragility of life. This muscle is just banging away under your palm for no apparent reason, keeping time all on its own.”
“Even though it feels like a fish consistently/steadily flapping its tail in your hand, it represents a person’s whole life and is strong enough to handle decades of high blood pressure, fat, sugar, exercise, fear, love, and all the other things you throw at it.
Surgery is magical to me.”
Did any of these body facts surprise you? Surgeons, what are some things you know about the human body that most people don’t? Tell us in the comments or answer anonymously using the form below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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