Med-Surg Cardiovascular System, part 3: Hematologic System - Blood Components and Hemostasis

Hi, I am Cathy, with Level Up RN. In this video, we are going to continue our anatomy and physiology review of the cardiovascular system, focusing now on the hematologic system. So if you're following along with cards, definitely pull those out. We're going to talk about the components of the blood, and we're also going to talk about the steps involved in hemostasis. At the end of the video, I will be giving you guys a little quiz to test your knowledge of some of the concepts I'll be covering in this video. So definitely, stay tuned for that. Here's an illustration from our medical surgical nursing flashcard deck, and you could see that our blood is made up of plasma as well as formed elements. So within the plasma, plasma is comprised of water, ions, proteins such as albumin, globulin, fibrinogen and clotting factors. Nutrients are also contained within the plasma as well as waste and gases. Over here, we have our formed elements. So first of all, we have our red blood cells, which are erythrocytes. These are instrumental in carrying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the body. Our white blood cells are leukocytes, are part of the body's immune system and help to detect and fight off pathogens. And then lastly, we have our platelets, which are thrombocytes, and they are instrumental in the blood clotting process, which we are going to talk about next.

Now let's talk about the steps involved in hemostasis or blood clotting. So we have primary hemostasis and secondary hemostasis. With primary hemostasis, we have injury to a blood vessel. This triggers basal constriction, platelet aggregation, and the formation of a platelet plug. And formation of that plug then triggers secondary hemostasis. So during secondary hemostasis, we have all of these clotting factors. So clotting factors 1, 2, 3, all the way up to 13, and they activate each other in a very complicated clotting cascade. So when I was in physiology, I'm pretty sure I had to know a lot of the details of that cascade. But in nursing school, they did not expect me or anyone in my class to know that level of detail. So hopefully, you don't have to know that level of detail either. So within secondary hemostasis, we have the intrinsic pathway, extrinsic pathway, and a common pathway. So with the intrinsic pathway, we have activation of clotting factors inside the blood in response to blood vessel damage. And we measure this intrinsic pathway through activated partial thromboplastin time, so APTT.

Then we have our extrinsic pathway. This is where we have activation of clotting factors outside the blood in response to trauma to extravascular cells, so cells outside the blood. And we can measure the extrinsic pathway through prothrombin time, so PT. And then the intrinsic pathway and extrinsic pathway will come together into a common pathway. And during that time prothrombin is activated into thrombin, and this activates fibrinogen into fibrin, which is a clot. The key takeaway from this information is that hemostasis involves platelets as well as clotting factors. So when we talk about coagulation disorders later in this playlist, you'll see that some of those coagulation disorders are caused by a lack of platelets, and other coagulation disorders are caused by a lack of clotting factors. All right. You guys ready for your quiz? Question number one, what are the formed elements in the blood? The answer is red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Question number two, where in the blood do you find clotting factors? If you said the plasma, you're correct. Question number three is a true/false question. Formation of a platelet plug occurs during primary hemostasis. The answer is true. Okay. I hope this video has been helpful. In my next video, we will start talking more about diagnostic tests related to the cardiovascular system. So definitely stay tuned for that.