Methods are provided for automatically actuating and positioning a first medical device in a subject anatomy with a remote medical navigation system together with a localized second medical device that passes through the first device and is also actuated by the remote navigation system to access a desired target location. After an initial calibration step, an exemplary method comprises: (a) determining configurational variables for the first medical device based on a computational model of device deformation and a set of geometrical constraints, and (b) automatically steering the first medical device with the remote navigation system to the computationally determined configuration.