Endocrine System – NCLEX Review (Nursing)

00:00 Now, we're gonna take a look at pharmacology and the endocrine system.

00:03 Now, you get a two for one deal in here because we're gonna talk about the drugs of the endocrine system but we're also gonna look at the drugs that we use that mimic that system.

00:13 So you're gonna wrap up this section and have a good idea of the most important pharmacology of these medications and some disease processes.

00:22 Now, this is the endocrine system overall.

00:24 These are all the organs that you recognize but we're gonna highlight 3 of them with corticosteroids.

00:29 The hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and the adrenal gland.

00:33 Now, how does the endocrine system do all that? Well, we've got hormones, receptors, and target cells.

00:41 So you need all 3 of these for the endocrine system to work.

00:45 Now remember, endocrine system can crank things up or back things off.

00:50 That's based on that feedback loop.

00:52 So that's a really amazing system that it can do all of that.

00:57 I know this seems like, what do we do in here? Why do we have so much information on the endocrine system? Because it's the key to understanding how the pharmacological drugs work.

01:10 Because all we're doing with the pharmacology or the endocrine drugs is mimicking what your body normally does.

01:17 So at the end of this session, this is why you really wanna hang with with us here, because you're gonna understand how corticosteroids work at a new level.

01:25 You're gonna find a simpler way to remember all those side effects.

01:29 When I was in nursing school, they made us write out all the side effects.

01:32 It took forever. But I'm gonna give you a shortcut way to remember the most important ones.

01:38 You're also gonna know the difference between Cushing's and Addison's disease and how we treat them.

01:45 So this is gonna be a great review, refresher, and hopefully add some new content.

01:51 I'm gonna use the analogy of American football to kinda describe what happens in the endocrine system.

01:57 We've got the coach, the quarterback, and the receiver.

02:00 Now, based on my knowledge of athletics, the coach is the one who oversees, collects all the information, and decides what play to call next.

02:09 They send the play into the quarterback and the quarterback knows where to throw the ball down the field to the receiver.

02:15 But we're gonna think of these as how the organs work in your body.

02:18 The coach is the hypothalamus, the quarterback is the anterior pituitary, and the receiver can be any number of glands but we're gonna focus on the adrenal gland.

02:29 So just underscore adrenal gland.

02:31 So the coach in the role of hypothalamus, we've got a great picture for you there to see right where the hypothalamus is in your brain.

02:39 It's in the center part of your brain and it's the main link between the endocrine and the nervous system.

02:45 That's a pretty important role so when you take a hit, a head injury, the hypothalamus isn't working, it's gonna have a whipple of effects all the way through the body.

02:56 So know that the hypothalamus is critically important in being that link in between the endocrine and the nervous systems.

03:03 So the nerve cells here control the pituitary gland which is relatively tiny but very, very important because the hypothalamus will produce these chemicals, they stimulate or suppress hormones.

03:16 So do me a favor and underline stimulate and suppress just to keep in mind that you know there's that constant balance going on when everything is functioning well.

03:26 So the hypothalamus produces chemicals that either stimulate or suppress hormone secretions from the pituitary.

03:33 Now the pituitary gland, it's tiny but it's called the master gland.

03:39 That's because it's pretty bossy.

03:41 Much like a little kid how they can rule the world with one finger, pituitary gland is the master gland because it has impact on so many other glands in your body.

03:51 So we're gonna consider that the quarterback position.

03:54 Remember, the hypothalamus is getting a lot of information, calling the play to the quarterback, the quarterback in this case is the pituitary gland.

04:02 It makes hormones that can control lots of other organs and the hypothalamus gives information sensed by the brain, temperature, light exposure, patterns, feelings, to the pituitary gland to tell it to either increase or suppress actions in the body.

04:19 It's got 2 lobes, anterior and posterior. We're not gonna spend a lot of time here.

04:24 You see on the slide what the posterior pituitary gland secretes but we're going to focus on the anterior portion of it.

04:33 Now, it regulates the activity of the thyroid, the adrenal glands, and the reproductive glands.

04:40 We're gonna focus on the interaction between the hypothalamus, the anterior pituitary, and the adrenal glands.

04:47 Whoa, that's a lot of hormones. I know.

04:50 But this list is here to remind you that you do need to be familiar with all 4 of these when you're thinking of the function of the endocrine system.

04:58 So take a second, breeze through those, if they don't sound familiar to you, write yourself a note to come back and spend some time with them but we're gonna keep moving. We're also gonna focus on the peak ball.

05:10 The one ACTH.

05:12 This is the one that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce certain hormones.

05:17 Now, the adrenal glands are located on your kidneys so the adrenal glands are on top of the kidneys.

05:23 We have one on top of each kidney.

05:26 There's 2 parts to the adrenal gland. There's the medulla and the cortex.

05:31 So make sure you're kinda familiar where are those.

05:33 Which one is in the middle or deeper in the tissue, that's the medulla.

05:38 The adrenal cortex is around it. Okay, so you've got the location of these.

05:43 We got the hypothalamus, the anterior pituitary, and then the adrenal gland which is on top of the kidneys.

05:49 It's not part of the kidneys but it's on top of them and in this example, they're the receiver.

05:55 They're the person at the end of the American football field that's catching the ball.

05:59 Okay, so the cortex can do some pretty cool things. It produces corticosteroids.

06:06 So just underline that C-O-R-T.

06:09 It's an easy way to remember what comes out of the adrenal cortex are the corticosteroids.

06:15 Now, it has significant influence in the rest of the body.

06:20 The steroids that come from the adrenal cortex regulates salt and water balance.

06:25 They also input the body's response to stress.

06:28 Metabolism, the immune systems, sexual development, and function.

06:33 Now, besides that just being a list, you know the question we always ask you to ask yourself is, so what? Why does this matter? Why do we need to look at this? Well, when someone is receiving corticosteroids as a medical treatment, we know that this is gonna have an impact on all of those areas.

06:51 Salt, water, stress, metabolism, immune, sexual development, and function.

06:57 So anyone taking corticosteroids is gonna be impacted in some way, maybe small, maybe large, in each one of those areas from corticosteroids.

07:10 Now the adrenal medulla, this produces catecholamines like epinephrine.

07:15 Now we're talking sympathetic nervous system, right? When I'm under stress, when I'm afraid, when I'm going on a run, and my adrenal medulla squirts out the catecholamines, they travel through my body and for example, the impact when those catecholamines connect with a receptor in my lungs, my lungs will bronchodilate.

07:36 If they connect with the beta 1 receptors in my heart, my heart will beat faster and stronger because remember in the endocrine system, you need hormones, you need receptors, and you need the target.

07:48 In this case, we're talking about hypothalamus to pituitary, to adrenal gland.

07:55 Now's your chance. I've used a lot of repetition.

07:58 We will continue to use that as a memory strategy but I want you to stop, pause, and reflect and see what you can recall.

08:05 Which 3 parts of the endocrine system are represented by the following? Great. Hypothalamus is the coach, the quarterback is the anterior pituitary, and the receiver in our example is adrenal glands.