{"id":695892,"date":"2026-03-06T14:01:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=695892"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T17:05:51","slug":"sylvia-owusu-ansah-the-pitt-medical-advisor-695892","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/sylvia-owusu-ansah-the-pitt-medical-advisor-695892\/","title":{"rendered":"The script doctor is in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sylvia Owusu-Ansah \u201900 shapes medical storytelling on HBO Max\u2019s The Pitt.<\/em><\/h2>\n

In 1967, 25 Black men from Pittsburgh\u2019s impoverished Hill District were trained as the country\u2019s first paramedics\u2014not by a university hospital or a government agency, but through a community initiative called Freedom House Ambulance Service. They revolutionized emergency medicine. Then history mostly forgot them. University of Rochester<\/a> alumna Sylvia Owusu-Ansah \u201900 made sure HBO Max didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Owusu-Ansah\u2014medical director of prehospital and emergency medical services at UPMC Children\u2019s Hospital of Pittsburgh\u2014joined The Pitt<\/em> as a medical advisor through Hollywood, Health & Society, a University of Southern California program that helps the entertainment industry tell accurate health stories. The show, which follows a single shift at a fictional Pittsburgh emergency department, swept the television drama category at the Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Critics Choice Awards. Season 2 is currently streaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to talk about healthcare in Pittsburgh,\u201d Owusu-Ansah told the writers, \u201cyou have to talk about Freedom House Ambulance.\u201d The story found its way into the show through Willie, an 81-year-old patient revealed to be a former medic in the program. Within weeks of the episode\u2019s release, social media lit up with people discovering this history for the first time\u2014fueling bipartisan support for a bill to award Freedom House the Congressional Gold Medal, a cause Owusu-Ansah has long championed.<\/p>\n

Freedom House was one of many ideas she brought to The Pitt<\/em>. When the producers asked what storylines had been missing from medical dramas, she raised the underrepresentation of Black physicians\u2014only 5 percent of active physicians identify as Black, and just 2.3 percent are Black women\u2014and the growing number of children ingesting THC. She also shared insights into the demographics of Pittsburgh and how healthcare workers observe a moment of silence after a patient dies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to talk about healthcare in Pittsburgh, you have to talk about Freedom House Ambulance.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One storyline drew directly from her own life. A 17-year-old Black girl arrived at Owusu-Ansah\u2019s emergency department spitting, biting, and complaining of pain. \u201cI heard a lot of screaming,\u201d she recalls. \u201cShe was in four-point restraints. The security guard even had his hand around her neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owusu-Ansah\u2014the only other Black person there\u2014immediately recognized the patient was not an addict but in the throes of a sickle cell pain crisis. \u201cI yelled and screamed, told them to get off her, and kneeled down next to her, whispered in her ear, \u2018Just try to relax. I\u2019m here for you. I\u2019m your advocate.\u2019\u201d That patient became Joyce St. Clair on The Pitt<\/em>, with third-year resident Samira Mohan taking on the role of Owusu-Ansah.<\/p>\n

For season 2, she helped build the story of one-month-old \u201cBaby Jane Doe,\u201d abandoned in the hospital bathroom. She shared information on Pennsylvania\u2019s Safe Haven law and the threshold\u2014older than 28 days\u2014at which leaving an infant at a hospital becomes a crime.<\/p>\n

Originally from Boston, Owusu-Ansah majored in biochemistry at URochester before earning an MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and a master of public health from Johns Hopkins University. Long before The Pitt<\/em>, she was channeling her own experiences into educating and standing up for others.<\/p>\n

While at URochester, she founded Kids for College, a mentorship program that brought students from underserved Rochester communities to campus for STEM and liberal arts enrichment. She later spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill advocating for pediatric healthcare legislation.<\/p>\n

Since October, Owusu-Ansah has stepped back from the emergency department: She is a cancer survivor who completed her final chemotherapy treatment on February 10. She has also stepped behind the camera. In Good Hands,<\/em> a finalist for an HBO Short Film Award, draws on her experience as a Black physician in academia. Featured at last year\u2019s American Black Film Festival, it is currently screening on American Airlines.<\/p>\n

For Owusu-Ansah, navigating the television and film industry as a full-time physician provides a newfound sense of balance\u2014and a way to reach people medicine alone cannot. \u201cOver the span of a lifetime of my profession, I may touch hundreds, maybe thousands of lives individually,\u201d she says. \u201cBut through media, you touch millions of people all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

This story is adapted with permission from an original article<\/a> by Subaah Sayed \u201927 in the <\/em>Campus Times, the student newspaper at the University of Rochester<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sylvia Owusu-Ansah \u201900 shapes medical storytelling on HBO Max\u2019s The Pitt<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1612,"featured_media":695932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,456],"tags":[42,18722,16072],"class_list":["post-695892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","category-society-culture","tag-alumni","tag-department-of-biology","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe script doctor is in<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"University of Rochester alumna Sylvia Owusu-Ansah \u201900 shapes medical storytelling on HBO Max\u2019s The Pitt.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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