Wolfgang Schmidt was born in Berlin, Germany, and received his medical education at the Free University in Berlin. He worked in internal medicine focusing on intensive care medicine and gastroenterology from 1983-1993. He became a senior physician at the Medical Centre for Rheumatology in Berlin-Buch, received his rheumatology degree in 1996, and is deputy director since 2005. His scientific work focuses on musculoskeletal ultrasound and on imaging in vasculitis. He has taught at many ultrasound courses around the world. He completed habilitation in 2002 and became a professor of Free and Humboldt Universities in Berlin in 2010.