Dr. Carla Pugh

Biography

Carla Pugh, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Director of the Technology Enabled Clinical Improvement (T.E.C.I.) Center. Her expertise lies in Acute Care Surgery, where she utilizes advanced engineering technologies and sensors to develop innovative approaches for assessing and defining competency in clinical procedural skills. Pugh holds multiple patents centered around sensor data acquisition technology, which are instrumental in measuring and characterizing hands-on clinical skills. Her work is currently implemented in hundreds of medical and nursing schools, demonstrating significant influence in surgical education. A recognized leader in the field, Pugh has been honored with numerous awards from medical engineering organizations, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She is noted for her TEDMED talk discussing the potential of haptic technology in measuring clinical skills. Inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2018 and the National Academy of Medicine in 2021, Pugh's research focuses on creating objective metrics through data analysis strategies in the emerging field of digital healthcare.

Research Interests

Experience