Schwartz served in the United States Navy in Annapolis, Maryland and Portsmouth, Virginia until 2005 when she joined the U.S. Public Health Service and transferred from the Navy to the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Early in her career, as a Navy officer, she served as an occupational medicine physician with postings that included chief of the occupational medicine, immunization and preventative medicine departments of the Annapolis, Maryland Naval Medical Clinic. Schwartz also served at the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. Schwartz served as Chief of Health Services and Chief of Preventive Medicine at the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. where she implemented disease surveillance, vaccination, screening and NBC countermeasure programs. She wrote the service's first ever pandemic influenza, anthrax and smallpox vaccination, quarantinable communicable disease, periodic health assessment and HIV policies. Schwartz also worked to develop health protection guidance for armed forces deployments following Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, the 2009 flu pandemic, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the West Africa Ebola outbreak. She was appointed as the Coast Guard's principal expert on flu pandemics. Schwartz has been awarded one Legion of Merit, two Meritorious Service Medals, both the Coast Guard and Navy Commendation Medals and, in 2011, was recognised as one of the Military Health System female physicians of the year.
U.S. Public Health Service admiralship
Schwartz was appointed to the rank of rear admiral in the commissioned corps along with her appointment as the U.S. Coast Guard's Chief Medical Officer on 17 August 2015. As chief, she concurrently served as the Coast Guard's Director of Health, Safety and Work-Life and had responsibility for managing the service's 42 clinics and 150 sick bays. She oversaw the Coast Guard's environmental health and safety program, focusing on risk management and accident prevention. She also led the service's work-life programs including: child care, culinary services, substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention, personal financial management, ombudsman, health promotion, and employee assistance. In January 2018, Rear Admiral Schwartz testified before the U.S. House Transportation Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation on the need for the service to transition to an electronic health record system, in line with the other services of the U.S. Armed Forces. She stated that the current paper-based record and prescription system did not allow efficient transfer of records from the Coast Guard to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Schwartz was selected for appointment as the Deputy Surgeon General of the United States on 1 January 2019.
