System Dynamics (VenSim) Challenge: Apprenticeship Level 1

Simulating Therapeutic Medication Levels

Background Reading
Dr. Brocket practices internal medicine in a major South Eastern city. One day Ms.
Homes came in for a checkup and described the symptoms of a serious kidney condition.
The medication that is used to treat her kidney condition isnt effective until the patient
has at least 100 milligrams in her body. If the medicine level reaches above 400
milligrams, it becomes toxic to the body. The body metabolizes (breaks down) and
excretes this medication at a rate of 10% of the amount in the body every hour. Dr.
Brocket needs to prescribe the medication in the proper dosage so Ms. Homes will get
well and not have harmful side effects from an overdose.
Certification Challenge
Your task is to construct a VenSim model that will produce the graph below and help Dr.
Brocket find a dosage rate that is safe, effective and convenient for Ms. Homes to take
daily.
We are interested in the values held in the following reservoir:
1.Medication level
At the beginning of the model, the medicine level reservoir contains these values:
1. Medication Level: 0
For the medication reservoirs, here is a description of the inflows and outflows:
1. Medication Level: The medication reservoir has 2 rates, one coming in and one
going out.
A. Take pills: an inflow (a rate in VenSim notation). The take pills
inflow depends on 3 auxiliary variables:
i. Start taking: this is the time it takes Ms. Homes to get her
prescription filled and take her first dose. Set the initial value to
4.
ii. Time between dosages: this is the number of hours Ms. Homes
waits between dosages. Set the initial value at 24 or once a day.
iii. Dosage: this is the number of mg of medicine that Ms. Homes
takes with each dose. Set the initial value at 200.
The formula in take pills is = PULSE TRAIN( {start}start taking ,
{duration}0.25, {repeattime}time between dosages , {end}100 )*dosage.
The duration is set to 0.25 the time step. The end is set to 100 hours the
end of the simulation.

B.
Excreted: an out flow. Excreted depends on the auxiliary variable
excretion rate. The excretion rate is set at .1 or 10%. The formula in
excreted is= Medication level*excretion rate.
There are 2 other important factors:
1. Therapeutic level: an auxiliary variable set at 100.
2. Toxic level: an auxiliary variable set at 400.
The time unit for this model is hours, and we want to run it from 0 to 100 hours or just
over 4 days. Your time step should be set to .25. Your model should have:
1 box variable
2 rates
6 auxiliary variables
5 connectors
When you run your model, it should produce a graph that looks like the one below: