For her leadership in developing emergency ultrasound education and access worldwide, Dr. Jessica Schmidt has received the 2025 Innovations and Impact Award (iAward) from the Society of Clinical Ultrasound Fellowships (SCUF).
Presented at the society’s annual conference, held in St. Louis from October 7-8, the iAward recognizes physicians whose work broadens the reach of ultrasound in meaningful, sustainable ways. Schmidt was honored for her efforts to expand point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) use in patient care, training and research globally in low-resource settings, particularly by empowering non-emergency medicine physicians to use the diagnostic technology in everyday care.
“Dr. Schmidt’s blend of innovation, scholarship and sustainable program building makes her an outstanding candidate for this award, demonstrating how ultrasound can transform health care worldwide,” the awards committee said in an announcement.
SCUF represents fellowship programs and educators advancing ultrasound use in emergency and critical care through research, mentorship and global collaboration.
An associate professor and emergency medicine physician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Schmidt has spent her career championing POCUS, a portable, low-cost technology that allows clinicians to visualize the heart, lungs and other organs at the bedside.
She has joined physicians in East Africa, as well as Central and South America, to tackle a shared challenge: how to diagnose illness accurately and quickly, especially when access to advanced imaging, such as X-ray or computerized tomography (CT), is limited. Schmidt says the technology’s real power lies in its accessibility.
“Two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t have access to diagnostic imaging,” Schmidt said. “Ultrasound is teachable, reliable and affordable. It’s one of the few tools that can truly democratize disease diagnosis.”
Earlier this year, Schmidt spent six months in Rwanda as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, collaborating with physicians at Kibagabaga Hospital in the country’s capital, Kigali, to study how ultrasound could improve the detection and treatment of pediatric pneumonia — one of the leading causes of death among children under five worldwide. A child dies of pneumonia every 43 seconds, according to UNICEF.
Although largely preventable through vaccination, pneumonia remains one of the deadliest infectious disease among young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In Rwanda, factors such as indoor air pollution from cooking fires, malnutrition and limited access to diagnostic tools continue to drive illness and death. Despite near-universal vaccination coverage, many pneumonia cases go undetected simply because front-line clinicians lack the means to confirm the diagnosis early.
Schmidt found that nearly half of children with potential pneumonia symptoms evaluated with point-of-care ultrasound — ekogarafi in Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda — showed signs of pneumonia, underscoring how portable ultrasound can strengthen pediatric care where radiography is limited.
Yet for Schmidt, technology is only part of the equation. Her focus is also on training and empowering clinicians to integrate ultrasound into their daily practice.
In Rwanda, she has developed a teaching model that supports local ultrasound champions and continuous image review, ensuring sustainability and consistency in the use of POCUS in clinical care and education. Schmidt partnered with African Health Sciences University, which launched its first academic programs in late 2024, to enhance ultrasound education for their inaugural cohort of emergency medicine residents.
“The goal isn’t just to bring tools to the frontline” Schmidt said. “It’s also to build local capacity so more health care providers can make confident, informed decisions about patient care at the bedside.”
Her work in Rwanda also integrates with the World Health Organization’s Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) framework, which standardizes pediatric care in low-resource settings. By adding ultrasound into this model, Schmidt hopes to improve outcomes for children with pneumonia and other respiratory and cardiac conditions that too often go undiagnosed.
Schmidt first visited Rwanda in 2017 as invited faculty to teach ultrasound to the country’s first emergency medicine residency program at University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK). Many of those early trainees now lead emergency care initiatives across the region. Her global health partnerships extend to Uganda, Peru, Guatemala and beyond — each reflecting a model of reciprocal POCUS learning between clinicians worldwide.
Now back in Wisconsin, Schmidt continues to mentor residents and fellows with global health interests while maintaining active clinical and research partnerships abroad. Her work — and the recognition it has earned — highlights how academic and clinical collaboration across borders can drive sustainable improvements in emergency care and bring lifesaving innovation closer to where it’s needed most.
The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Government.