From Pritzker to The Pitt: An Alum Returns from Hollywood's Emergency Department

By Caitlin Pike

The physician at the front of the room had once sat in the very seats before her, unaware where her career would lead. Returning to the Pritzker School of Medicine last week for the first time in more than 20 years, Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, MD, MPH, FAAP, found herself back in a Biological Sciences Learning Center lecture hall where she had spent many hours as a student – this time as the speaker.

Owusu-Ansah, a 2005 Pritzker graduate, drew a full house of current students, faculty, and staff as she reflected on her journey from Pritzker to the award-winning HBO Max hospital drama “The Pitt” and highlighted the goals behind key storylines drawn from her real-life experiences. 

Owusu-Ansah delivered the first lecture of this year's Research in Medical Education (RIME) series. As Pritzker looks toward its centennial anniversary in 2027, RIME and other featured events have provided a platform to welcome notable alumni back to campus. Owusu-Ansah also spoke at the Women in Medicine Summit in Chicago.

Owusu-Ansah's path has taken her from the emergency department to the writers' room. An associate professor at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and pediatrician specializing in pediatric emergency medicine and emergency medical services at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, she served as a medical advisor on the first two seasons of “The Pitt,” particularly focusing on how the show portrays health disparities. Her RIME lecture, "From Bedside to Broadcast," traced how she came to that work through writing, advocacy, and a short film based on her own experiences.

"Storytelling is everything," she told students, noting that at a time when most adults turn to the internet for medical information, primetime television shapes public trust in medical institutions and drives community health literacy.

To show what that looks like in practice, Owusu-Ansah walked through several scenes from “The Pitt” that grew out of her consultation. One followed a patient in a sickle cell crisis who is treated as aggressive and drug-seeking until a physician recognizes what is really happening – a storyline drawn from her own experience advocating for a young patient. 

"As providers, we need to challenge ourselves on our own biases," Owusu-Ansah said.

Another storyline honored the legacy of Pittsburgh's Freedom House Ambulance Service, an EMS service staffed by Black men and women that pioneered modern paramedic care beginning in the late 1960s. A third highlighted language equity, portraying how families who don't speak English navigate high-stakes triage without professional interpreters.

Owusu-Ansah introduced a final scene simply: "This is my story."

It followed a physician, the only Black doctor in her clinic, who, during a tense moment in the emergency department, is warmly embraced by a Black family that sees her as their own. The scene spoke, Owusu-Ansah said, to both the isolation minority physicians can feel and the way shared identity between patient and provider can break down mistrust and create safety in a moment of crisis. 

Her closing message for students in the room was an invitation. 

"You are at a perfect time to begin to integrate all the things you love with medicine," she said, describing a profession that for her has been broad enough to hold advocacy, art, and storytelling alongside clinical practice.

For Owusu-Ansah, the afternoon was a homecoming. For the students who filled the hall, it was a glimpse of where a Pritzker education could lead.