Postdoctoral scholar Jessica González Vargas is working to improve physician training on one of the most common medical procedures in the United States — placing a central line in a patient’s vein. González Vargas is part of a Penn State research team that has designed and implemented a novel robotic training program for physicians to gain experience in the procedure while aiming to reduce error rates and complications. Credit: Penn State University.
WATCH: Student success in engineering improved patient outcomes
College of Engineering postdoctoral scholar Jessica González Vargas helps to develop novel medical simulation training program for physicians to place central lines
Oct 10, 2024
Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Penn State News.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jessica González Vargas, a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Engineering Design and Innovation, is working to improve physician training on one of the most common medical procedures in the United States — placing a central line in a patient’s vein. González Vargas is part of a Penn State research team that has designed and implemented a novel robotic training program for physicians to gain experience in the procedure while aiming to reduce error rates and complications. The program uses life-like manikins and augmented reality to simulate real-world scenarios for trainees.
Since developing the program, the team has trained more than 700 physicians on central-line placement and is expanding the medical simulation training at participating hospitals to include colonoscopies and laparoscopies. Their recent study, published in the Journal of Surgical Education, demonstrated a significant reduction in placement errors and in complications, including infections and blood clots, after the training was launched.
“As engineers, we can be embedded within a health care setting in a hospital and do something about it to actually improve patient outcomes in the future,” said González Vargas. “With our project and simulator, physicians can potentially go into the clinical environment more confident and more prepared than they would traditionally be.”
González Vargas became involved with the project while pursuing her doctorate in industrial engineering at Penn State. Learn more about her student success, including her contributions to and motivations for the project, in the video below.
Jessica González Vargas. Credit: Michael Owen/Penn State.
Learn more about the novel robotic training program, led by Scarlett Miller and Jason Moore, both professors of mechanical engineering at Penn State, and the impact their program has made for physicians and patients at www.psu.edu.
(Editor’s note: González Vargas completed her time as a postdoctoral scholar in spring 2024, after this video was filmed. She is now an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Mississippi State University.)
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