Modeling and simulation in biomedicine

A group of researchers and educators in The Netherlands, Germany and Czechoslovakia have developed and adapted mathematical computer models of phenomena in the field of physiology and biomedicine for use in higher education. The models are graphical and highly interactive, and are all written in TurboPascal or the mathematical simulation language PSI. An educational shell has been developed to launch the models. The shell allows students to interact with the models and teachers to edit the models, to add new models and to monitor the achievements of the students. The models and the shell have been implemented on a MS-DOS personal computer. This paper describes the features of the modeling package and presents the modeling and simulation of the heart muscle as an example.