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Male Reproductive Organs, The (1/8)

This is also part of this series: Don't Die Young (8)

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Subjects: Anatomy, Health Issues, Human Rights, Medicine, Nutrition, Science

Grade Level: SrH-Adult
Producer: BBC
Closed Captioned: No

Running Time: 30 mins
Country of Origin: Great Britain
Study Guide: No

Copyright Date: 2008
Available in French: No

Dr Alice Roberts looks at those bits men don’t like to mention to their doctors – their reproductive organs. Yet with 10,000 men a year in the UK alone dying from prostate cancer (a condition which is nearly always curable if caught early enough), men do need to learn more about their bodies. So with her trademark no-nonsense style, Alice gets to work explaining how the male anatomy works and offering practical advice on how to keep it all healthy.

She joined by Mark Smallman, a 30-year-old events manager living in Birmingham. Like most men, Mark realises he actually knows very little about his own body: “It’s probably a quite basic understanding to be honest … schoolboy stuff”.

Mark’s education begins in the lab, with Dr Alice dissecting a pig’s male reproductive organs and getting Mark to cut through a testicle. Although testicular cancer is fairly uncommon, Mark is in the age group most at risk – that’s men under 40. So asking questions on behalf of all men, Mark also discovers how to self-examine for lumps by meeting urologist Alan Doherty and having his own testes pictured on an ultrasound.

Mr Doherty also carries out a pioneering operation (filmed in the programme and watched by Mark) on a prostate cancer sufferer. Ian Roberts, a police officer in his early fifties from Coventry, has the cancer removed using keyhole surgery. He explains what his symptoms were and why it is important for men to have regular checks at their doctors.

Other features of this episode include some cross-country runners used to demonstrate the journey of the sperm from the testes to the female reproductive system; modelling clay and wire wool to show how the male anatomy sits in the pelvis; a fuzzy-felts game made by Dr Alice to test pub-goers’ knowledge of the male anatomy and balloons to demonstrate how an erection works.

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