Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, MD, MPH, FAAP

Sylvia Owusu-Ansah is a board-certified pediatrician, and board eligible pediatric emergency medicine and emergency medical physician who is currently the medical director of Prehospital and EMS at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Owusu-Ansah has completed both a pediatric emergency medicine and emergency medical services fellowship. During her career in pediatric emergency medicine she has been featured in media outlets on issues related to child health. These media outlets include but are not limited to podcasts, blogs, newspaper and magazine articles including the New York Times and Huffington Post. 

She has spent a majority of her career developing curriculums and providing education for EMS personnel in both urban and suburban environment, including Washington DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh as well as government agencies such as the United States Secret Service. She has co-authored the recent Pediatric Education for Prehospital Providers recent edition textbook, otherwise known as PEPP, as well as the EMS Textbook’s next edition. Owusu-Ansah is also co-author and first author for the Pediatric Prehospital Readiness for EMS Systems Policy Statement and Technical Report and is currently on the National Committee for Pediatric Prehospital Readiness. She also serves on the board for the National Registry of EMTs (NREMT), for which she serves as chair of the research committee. Research includes c-spine immobilization in the prehospital environment as well as asthma management, seizure protocols, pediatric non-transports and pediatric airway in the prehospital environment.

In addition, she has spent a large portion of her career doing advocacy work with the American Academy of Pediatric Federal Affairs Office in Washington DC and helping to pass legislation to provide epinephrine auto-injectors in schools for children who may have anaphylaxis at school. Currently she is heading one of the first prehospital tracks for pediatric emergency medicine fellows.  

Owusu-Ansah now more recently focused her career on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion on multiple academic planes and now serves as the Associate Vice Chair of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  She inspired and co-authored the first anti-racism statement for UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and co-authored statements for the National Association of EMS Physicians, the largest organization of EMS Medical Directors in the country, as well as the NREMT.  She has been nominated and accepted the position of inaugural chair for the diversity task force for NAEMSP, and on the IDEA task force with the NREMT, and was nominated to serve on the Rapid Response Team by the dean of University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to aide in addressing and providing solutions to address systemic racism at the medical school. She is on the diversity and inclusion committee for the Department of Pediatrics at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and co-leads the hospital’s first ever pipeline program for local underserved middle school students and underrepresented in medicine students.

Owusu-Ansah enjoys spending time with her two beautiful daughters and husband, a former paramedic/firefighter.

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

• American Academy of Pediatrics, 2005-Present
  • Member, Emergency Medical Services Committee
• National Association of Emergency Medical Services Physicians, 2016-Present
  • Member, Pediatric EMS Committee
• American College of Emergency Physicians, 2016-2017