Biography
Dr. Jennifer Schmidt is a general internist and a medical educator with expertise in quality improvement, patient safety, clinical operations, and patient access. She received her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Marquette University during which time she interned with GE Healthcare. She earned her MD from Saint Louis University School of Medicine and continued her training with a Residency and Chief Residency in Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. During her Chief Residency, she completed the VA Chief Resident in Quality and Safety program focusing her research on physician event reporting as well as developing and implementing a PSQI curriculum for the Internal Medicine Residency program.
In 2016, she was recruited to Saint Louis University, where she served as Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program and Director of Quality for the Division of General Internal Medicine. Through these roles, she oversaw an operational overhaul of the primary clinical practice site for General Medicine, including the Internal Medicine Residency Continuity Clinic. She was named Section Chief of Ambulatory General Internal Medicine in 2017. Under her leadership the Division of GIM implemented a university and health-system wide urgent care clinic for employees, developed a robust nurse triage program utilizing best-practice protocols and served as a pilot site for multiple access initiatives later implemented practice-wide. She joined the faculty of Washington University in February 2020. Her work on utilizing FEMA principles to adjust clinical care models during COVID-19 was published in the New England Journal Catalyst and presented as part of an HRSA series.
Dr. Schmidt served as the Primary Care Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at WashU until 2022. She currently serves as the Associate Division Chief for Clinical Operations for General Medicine and Geriatrics. Under her leadership, the General Medicine clinics are known for their innovative care delivery and has served as a pilot site for many initiatives.
Dr. Schmidt is an active member of multiple academic societies, including the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM). She has previously served as President and Membership Chair for the Midwest Region of SGIM. She is currently the co-chair of SGIM’s Clinical Practice Committee and co-chaired the National SGIM 2024 meeting. She is certified in both Six Sigma and LEAN.
