Endocrine System

This is the first system you’ll study in your second year, and it plays a foundational role in setting the stage for what comes next. The endocrine system regulates nearly every aspect of human physiology—from growth and metabolism to stress responses, reproduction, and homeostasis. As such, it provides a critical lens for thinking about integration across organ systems, feedback regulation, and hormone-receptor signaling—all key concepts you’ll revisit again and again in medicine.

You’ll notice that some threads in this block—like Nutrition, Anatomy, and Physiology—reach well beyond the classic “endocrine organs.” That’s intentional. These topics serve as bridges to later systems, helping you understand how different organ systems communicate and regulate one another.

This block will be followed by the Reproductive System, which builds on your understanding of hormone signaling and feedback loops. Many of the concepts you’ll learn here—like steroid hormone synthesis, the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, and endocrine pathophysiology—will directly carry forward into that next system and beyond.

By the end of this block, you should not only understand how hormones work, but also how disruptions in endocrine pathways lead to common clinical conditions you’ll encounter in practice—from diabetes to thyroid disease to adrenal insufficiency.
We’re excited to kick off MS2 with you. Let’s get started.