Episode 271: Behind the Scenes of “The Pitt” With Sylvia Owusu-Ansah

Chadi sits down with Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah, a pediatric emergency physician at UPMC, to discuss her role as a medical advisor for the HBO Max series “The Pitt” and how she helped bring real-world authenticity to the show. She explains how the writers first approached her and asked a key question—what stories have not yet been told on medical dramas—which led her to highlight issues such as the challenges of sickle-cell pain management and share the powerful real-life story of a 17-year-old patient that ultimately inspired a storyline in the series. Dr. Owusu-Ansah also reflects on how her own experiences, including those as a Black physician in emergency medicine, informed the perspectives she brought to the writers’ room, and she discusses what “The Pitt” portrays most accurately about life in the ER and how the show differs from traditional medical dramas in its approach to realism.

Read more about Dr. Owusu-Ansah’s inspiration for “The Pitt.”
https://www.health.pitt.edu/news/pitt-doctor-sylvia-owusu-ansahs-story-influenced-upcoming-series-pitt

Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. https://www.chadinabhan.com/

Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

It's Shadi Nabhan, it's Healthcare Unfiltered. Thank you folks for tuning in to this episode of Healthcare Unfiltered. Thank you for being a loyal subscriber and listener and viewer to Healthcare Unfiltered. It's every week, Tuesday morning, week in and week out. Today's podcast is very special. I get to meet with Dr. Sylvia Ousu Ansa. She is an emergency room physician at UPMC, pediatric emergency room physician, and she is joining me to talk about her involvement with the hit series The Pit, which actually is on HBO Max. I mean, I I'm gonna I'm gonna guess that you must have watched The Pit at some point. I finished season one, I binge watch it actually, and I am in the process of watching season two. Dr. Sylvia Ausu Ansa met with the writers of The Pit and advised them about some stories that they need to portray, some stories that they shouldn't portray. So she was an advisor trying to make sure that she brings reality into a TV series. And if you've watched the show, you will agree with me that this is one of the best shows on television, medical shows. And it certainly portrays a lot of realities as opposed to a hyperbole. There's a couple of things I think that I believe were a little bit um too exaggerated, such as the medical students knowing everything. Uh, but aside from that, I think it's a great show. You should watch it. And I've invited Dr. Sylvia Ousuansa to come on the show to share her experience with us. And uh what how was she involved with the pit? I mean, this is this is amazing. And she generously accepted my invite. And this episode is all about that. We're gonna talk about her career journey, her involvement, and subsequently how she actually got involved with the pit and lessons learned. So, folks, if you uh are watching or listening, thank you. And you can subscribe to the show and don't forget to let your friends and colleagues know about healthcare unfiltered, comment, review, uh, join the conversation, and you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, all the social platforms and TikTok, of course. And without further ado, let's talk to Dr. Sylvia Ousu Ansa about the pit. Well, folks, this is a very special episode of Healthcare Unfiltered. I have Dr. Sylvia Ousu Ansa with me on today's show. And uh, you know, I mean, we'll do some introduction, but uh it's fair to say before we went on the air, I was telling uh Dr. Ousu Ansa I'm starstruck because I got to know about her through her involvement in the hit series The Pit, which I'm a big fan of, and I'm sure a lot of you folks who are listening and viewing this have watched the show. So um, Sylvia, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Thank you, Dr. Navan.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

No, no, no, doctor. I said Sylvia, so it's gonna go back now. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I know. I have my mother in my head, though. You know, you know how that works.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, I know, I know. Well, really, truly thank you for for coming on the show. And I know we've been um working on this for a while until we're able to secure time, so I appreciate it. Let's just get started by getting to know you a little bit. Um, just the uh the the person and um you know what got you into medicine, what got you into emergency room uh involvement in pediatrics. You have so many things going on, but but how did this all start?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Well, it's uh I'll try to summarize it the best way that I can. But from the age of seven, I knew that I wanted to be a doctor. My father still has the picture of me. Um it's actually a pretty decent photo. It's not a stick figure, but with a rectangular box behind me and a cross signifying me in a white coat signifying that I want to be a doctor. You know, kind of fast forward in during high school. Um, my stepfather, who I call my father, um, worked for the World Health Organization at the height of the HIV AIDS uh pandemic. So it dates me, you know, it's early 90s, um, and have had an opportunity to work closely with a newly minted health minister of the newly minted government of Namibia, Southwest Africa, which is located between Angola and South Africa, for many that don't know, um, or many that are aren't familiar with that. Um, and so it is there that I got to see the width and the breadth of public health. So my uh father was a public health specialist, and so I got to understand, you know, more of how to take care of health care from the masses from angle of multiple, multiple people, millions of people in preventative care. I was also touched by there were a lot of homeless children, uh, do uh homeless children and orphans secondary to their parents um dying from HIV-AIDS. So that really, really significantly touched me in in numerous ways as a teenager. Um, and so I kind of went back thinking that, you know, came back to the United States thinking that this is what I wanted to do. Um, and so then I went to college, I majored in biochemistry, uh, advanced biochemistry, but I didn't do as well in my standardized testing. So I was battling between, you know, being a scientist and working like with pharmaceutical companies versus, you know, being a doctor. Well, I'm a person of faith, and so I spent the time. I fasted and prayed for 21 days, and I had this vision of myself disheveled but in a white coat in a hospital. And interestingly enough, a good friend of mine who didn't know that I was, you know, having these thoughts um and didn't know I was fasting and praying told me she had the same exact dream. So I felt that that was confirmed. Um, I ended up only applying to four med schools though, because I still didn't think I was good enough to get in, not because I thought I was arrogant enough to get in. Um, and fortunate enough, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine said yes. Um, and it I did go to a minority medical uh mentorship program two years prior in Chicago that introduced me to all the Chicago med schools. So I think that helps significantly. Uh, and so that's how I ended up going to medical school. Um, the pediatric story, long and short, I wanted to do OBGuide. And interestingly enough, my last rotation was Obi-Guyne for my medical clinical rotations that third year, and I got a little bit cocky. And so this is a lesson to all don't do this. So I kind of breezed through surgery and internal medicine, even pediatrics, because I said, Oh, I'm doing Obi-Guyide, and it was my last rotation. And I got to OB Guide and I was like, not so much. Need to go back to the drawing board. Well, I took a year in between third and fourth year to get my master's in public health at the Johns Hopkins School of uh sorry, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And there one of my mentors was in adolescent medicine, and he says he told me, look, I do guyne every day, I do women's health every day, just work with younger women, I just don't deliver babies. And that intrigued me. And that adolescent medicine pathway would be through pediatrics. So I went back and finished my fourth year focusing on pediatrics. Um, and then in pediatrics, I realized I didn't want around. So I didn't want to be a hospitalist. And hospitalist was a growing um kind of specialty at the time. Again, I'm dating myself. Um, so I didn't want to, you know, be on the floors. Uh, I didn't, I didn't like clinic. I didn't want to be a general pediatrician. Uh, and I got to do um an e pediatric ED rotation, and I loved it. I loved the detective work. I knew I wanted to have a family. I love the fact that when I left from work, I'd be done. I like the fact that we were one of the first ones to kind of figure out what's going on, if if that's the case, um, that we can quote unquote heal and fix people right away. Um and so all of those things combined, I ended up working as a general pediatrician in the emergency department, which doesn't happen in a lot of specialties. Uh, so I was able to have that opportunity. I did that for four years because my husband at the time was switching to become from a mechanic to a paramedic firefighter. So we both couldn't go back to school and then subsequently went to into pediatric emergency medicine, which is the only thing I've known and done. Um, and then with my husband being an EMS, he influenced me and I did an EMS fellowship. So hopefully that's a good enough summary.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

That's that's that's a lot a lot of people though say, um, I mean, I'm a I'm a medical oncologist, like I can't genuinely picture myself doing pediatric oncology just because I think you know it's always emotional when you're dealing with anyone with cancer, frankly, adult or or or young, but kids with cancer is just it's just a very um takes a lot of emotional toll. How is it in the emergency room dealing with kids coming in the ER? Do you have a lot of like this this emotional aspect that becomes draining sometimes dealing with kids who are sick coming in?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Oh, definitely. Um, you know, it's never easy to call time, you know, pronounce a death on a child. Um, and this past summer, I know I had um like this past summer, I had like three back-to-back shifts where I had uh pediatric cardiac arrest of infants. And for the first time in 20 odd some odd years, I was questioning whether this was the right thing to do or whether I could, not the right thing to do. I love what I do, but could I withstand continuing to do it? It's very hard, you know, talking about pediatric oncology. A lot of times we're the first ones to diagnose. Um, and so it's hard to say that your, you know, your child has cancer, your child has diabetes, you know, even uh chronic illnesses, or to watch a child gasp for air, you know, during an asthma attack or a sickle cell patient. So it's very difficult. But what is beautiful about children is that they're extremely resilient and very transparent about where they are and how they feel. You don't feel like I have to play games with them. And there's a lot of beauty to that. And to be fair, a good portion of who we, you know, the population, pediatric population that we deal with in the emergency department are relatively healthy. And kids are relatively healthy. And so you're starting off with a clean slate, you're starting off with healthy lungs, kidneys, heart, you know, not a lot of medications, if at all. Um, and so so those are some of the refreshing aspects of pediatrics in the midst of the hard, enduring times.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

You've had obviously a lot of residents and students go through your emergency uh room over the years. Uh, what would you say, you know, as you observe how things are changing from uh the way they are actually dealing with patients or education and so on, and you have to mentor a lot of them. What is changing now if you have to compare today emergency room training or what you're seeing from residents and students compared to what you saw, for example, 10 years ago? Are you seeing a shift in anything?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, I mean, I I think I'm seeing a shift in the in the in the type of learning that that our trainees do, right? Um now everything is very tech-centric, uh, easily accessible. You know, I remember going to the stacks of the library to have to get this particular book, or some people might even remember the microfiche, um, you know, the slide projectors. Um, and now so many things are easily accessible. I sometimes I feel like if I was a learner now, I would have done so much better because I'm a visual learner. Um I think in sometimes it can take away from the work ethic of having to find things and dig deep. I mean, I I think there are pluses and minuses. You know, I think a you know, a lot of what you what you hear a lot of is that, you know, this, you know, Gen Z, this, millennial that, you know, they don't work as hard, they don't do this. I I think it's just different. You know, I think if you frame it as it's just, it's it's a different time uh and a different way of learning and a different framing, um, then there's a more cohesiveness to, you know, recognizing, you know, what your trainees are going through, right? As opposed to being the person, which I found myself to be that person and that parent was like, well, back in my day, yeah, no, um, but I try not to be because I don't think it's it's helpful. So I think in the way that folks learn, you know, you know, these these kids can pull out, you know, I've seen them pull out a YouTube video on like, you know, popping in a shoulder and that stuff, like I had to, you know, you had to read up on and be ready to do. There was no YouTube video to pull out, or um, there was no med calc to calculate. You need to know those articles and you needed to know those procedures ahead of time. Um, I think it is beneficial in the sense that it's more easily accessible. Sometimes I worry about, again, the work ethic behind it of like things coming too easily. So when other other other situations appear, how do you manage with that? I think one of the more positive aspects of what I'm seeing shifting now with trainees, you know, especially with the millennial generation and especially the Gen Z coming up, is they don't mess around with their wellness. That is non-negotiable, it's non-debatable. If they're sick, they're sick and they take care of themselves. And I think that's a good thing. And I think, you know, there's a balance in not overusing that in there, maybe some argument there, but I think in the wellness um pendulum has swung in the right direction, has kind of forced us to look at some things. Um, I would say I do get, you know, sometimes frustrated with the work ethic part of things. Um what do I mean by that? Of, you know, not digging deeper, sometimes things seeming superficial when you talk to a trainee, looking at things just on the surface and not delving deeper because you have such easy access to the information. Um, but other than that, I think it's a balance, you know, there's there's pros and cons.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

I love what you said about the um wellness. I do think there's a balance. I do think, I do think sometimes maybe our generation took it to the extreme that I on my deathbed I'm gonna be coming to the hospital or the emergency room. And the other one, if they cough a little bit, like okay, I'm exactly just meet in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

And you know, they tell you, like, I, you know, I'm I'm just sick, I can't come in. You you're kind of stuck, like you can't argue. Like, you know, if you argue, yeah. So so were you were you a fan of like medical TV shows? Forget the pits a little bit, like before that. Like, do you watch like ER?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Not at all. This is this is the irony of my life right now.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

You've never watched any of those.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

I I did watch a little bit of ER. Um, I vividly remember the Dr. Green episodes when he had none other than brain cancer, right? Um, yeah, I remember though being really touched by that and even like crying, yeah, even though I didn't watch like the whole ER series. I started watching Grey's Anatomy in the beginning, but then it just became too soap opera-y for me. Love Scrubs, didn't watch it consistently, but when I could, like when the new clubs were on, uh, I could. Um, and then for a period here and there, I was curious, like of the new of the newer regime of like Chicago. Not I didn't watch Chicago med, but like New Amsterdam intrigued me a little bit because it was more holistic looking at the healthcare system and how we can fight and change that, and not so much just strict medicine. Watched a little bit of house, but always got frustrated because I thought it was the same, like what was your metal diagnoses?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

What was your general opinion of medical TV shows?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Don't have time for it. Waste of time.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah. So so then then how were you contacted by the pit? Uh, like who called you?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yes. So a really, really good friend of mine, um, Dr. Beth Hoffman from the School of Public Health here, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. We do a lot of health media relations and we use a lot of media, the good, bad, and the ugly, the Chicago meds, the Gray's Anatomy, to educate folks on latest trends. For instance, I want to say it was Gray's Anatomy that had an episode on GFR in African Americans and how it's inaccurate and how that transcends and trickles down to lower rates of kidney transplants for these folks or uh, you know, a VBAC, you know, a lot of those things. So we use those nuggets within the grand scheme of things to educate. She works with a nonprofit organization called Hollywood Health and Society out of University of Southern California, the Lear Center. And their main job is to provide expertise to any show, healthcare expertise to any show. So they have a huge database of anywhere from pediatricians to podiatrists. Wow. You know, organ donation folks to, and it doesn't matter whether it is this is us or medical drama, they call the producers and executive producers and writers call Hollywood Health and Society and say, We're looking for this type of healthcare provider to get this type of expertise. Who do you have in your database? So they happen to reach out to Beth because she was in Pittsburgh and they said, We're looking for an ER doc who specializes in healthcare disparities. And she said, I know just the doctor. And she she said, You're it, tag, you're it. And so got connected with Hollywood Health and Society. Now, caveat, I had worked with them briefly during COVID, or I talked to them briefly during COVID about doing some work. So I was already in their database, but you know, Beth redirected them to me. They set me up with a Zoom call with in the writer's room for two hours with Dr. Joe Sachs, who's, I don't know if many people know, he's an active ED physician and executive producer and one of the writers for the pit. So he he still works in the ED. He experienced COVID. So that's one of the nuggets there. Um, is that your medical advisor is is an active physician in this space. Um, and the main thing that he asked, they asked many of us our advisors were the main question was what have you seen on medical, what have you not seen, I'm sorry, on medical drama series that you think needs to be seen? What stories have not been told yet?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Interesting. How did you answer that?

SPEAKER_00 19:02

So then there came the slew of storylines. And so my first one was sickle cell pain management. And, you know, trying to bust the myth on sickle cell patients being pain seekers. Do you recognize how bad bone pain is? Uh, this is a real disease. So I shared a story of a 17-year-old who came in in pain crisis and restraints. Um and so pretty much that same storyline, but a different age was depicted in the pit. Uh, I I talked about my concern for the uptake in THC ingestion in kids and these kids coming in comatose, teasing, and parents just being clueless, like having conversation after conversation with parents being like, oh no, maybe the, you know, maybe it's fentanyl, maybe it's something else. And like, no, this is just the THC that's making your kids so sick that we need to monitor them in the ICU. Because it was healthcare disparities. I talked about my experience as being the only black female, the only black physician in my pediatric emergency department, which is not very uncommon because only 5% of all active physicians in the United States are black, even though our population is 13%. And so hence Dr. Collins and I talked about an experience where, you know, I had lived in the DC area and done training in the DC area for over a decade before moving to Western Pennsylvania. So as a black woman, to be honest, I was a little bit hesitant, you know, to move out to Western Pennsylvania. And how am I perceived by the patients out here? I was reassured by one of my colleagues who trained and looked like me that she didn't have any significant adverse experiences that she could remember. And so one of my first experiences, I walked into a room, it was a black family, and the father said, our queen has arrived. Look, it's our queen. And I'm like, Queen? Right? I've been in the DC area, Chicago, Baltimore. And he's like, You, you're our queen. You're our black doctor. We're so proud of you. Um, and they asked about the demographics of Pittsburgh, and so and Nepali, Hindi, Somali, you know, what were the makeup of the what is the nursing demographics? What, you know, what is the race and ethnic, sorry, race and ethnicity of the nurses, the doctors. Um, you know, so we had the Nepali woman. I do a lot when it comes to CPR. So talked about the um the Lucas automated CPR device. So they use that in season one. Talked about how we take a moment of silence after each patient passes to recognize the patient. Talked about a patient who had vitamin C and the UR scurvy. Um, you know, there's little some little punch lines here and there. So they took quite a few. Yeah. So the biggest one though, the biggest one, I so so that I had that encounter. That was before they were accepted for as a pilot with HBO Max. I got an update. We're accepted as a pilot. We're gonna be a show. Congratulations. In May of 2024. I happen to be in LA for a conference and I wanted to take the time to thank Hollywood Health and Society for what they did for connecting me. And they said, This is your lucky day. We're going to take you into the writer's room.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Oh my God. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah. So I get there and it says John Wells Productions. It still doesn't hit me, right? Like what's happening? And I walk in the door and Noah Wiley's standing there. And then I'm like, you know, like, oh my gosh, what's happening? You know, he's like, Dr. Sylvie, it's okay. Uh, they have sit long story short, they had me sit at the head of the writer's table. They had me show them my movie, my short movie. Um, and they were like, tell us more about you, and tell us, you know, anything else you want us to know, anything else you want us to know. So I said, you cannot talk about healthcare without talking about Freedom House Ambulance. And they knew nothing about Freedom House Ambulance, the first ever EMS paramedics in the United States, which were 25 black men and later women in the predominantly black, historically black neighborhood of the Hill District in Pittsburgh, led by an immigrant in the in Dr. Peter Safar from Austria, a phenomenal human being, pioneer of his own. Um, he was a father of CPR, um, and some ways a father of anesthesia. And, you know, later on, led by an Israeli medical director by the name of Dr. Nancy Caroline, who went on to do amazing things. So you couldn't ask for like it's like a utopic, a better utopia of healthcare, you know, the best and the brightest, educating those who were deemed unemployable. Some of them had felony charges against them. A lot, some of them didn't finish high school, becoming the best of the best, taking care of their own community, improving outcomes for the most vulnerable, marginalized in that area. So um, so yeah, I'm doing a lot of work with them and um helping to lead on getting them the congressional gold medal. So it's like you you have to talk about this forgotten history.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

So, so I mean, like the first Zoom call with them, though, probably you did not think it's gonna be, you know, yeah. I mean, and then obviously it became like you know, real, like um it's gonna actually happen. So do they did they continue to call you like every few months?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

No, that was it. I I mean I in that two, it ended up being like four hours if you include the LA visit. I shared so much, and they kept telling me we took like five or six storylines, like not even one, five or six in season one. Um, well, to be uh, I there was for season two, they did reach out to a colleague of mine asking about how to work up an infant. Um, and he reached back out to me. Um, and so and I I gave them literally a dissertation on how we work up an infant. And so for season two, episode one, I did advise on how to work up uh the infant in that particular um in that particular episode. So I did a little bit of season two, but not officially.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Was there a specific story that like you said, there are like six stories that you are sure were direct um from what you told them. Was there a specific one that um you you felt thank God they took this one? This was really so important to me. Because you give them all of the advice and they have to decide then which storyline they take. Was there one that you really wanted? And yes, I'm like, okay, I'm glad they portrayed that. It was it's a lot to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Freedom House Ambulance, we're still reaping the benefits. Every single influencer is posting on Freedom House Ambulance, um, and they're using the pit. Um, before then, like I said, I've been working with this group maybe for about five years now, with the Freedom House Ambulance members, the surviving members. For three years, I've been working to get them a congressional gold medal. Um, we finally have bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, but we need senators. Um, and nobody had heard of them. Like in Pittsburgh, and now it's almost like, yeah, I heard of them because of the pit. This is incredible. I don't what happened? Why didn't we hear about this? Why is it in our textbooks? You had 25 million viewers. So, in order to get this congressional gold medal, you need two-thirds of Congress to vote yes. And if Congress members don't know about this, they're not gonna vote. Yes. And we had, we actually, there was a somebody from the State Department who reached out to our group, our task force group for the Congressional Gold Medal, and was like, I want to meet these members. I I didn't hear about this until the pit. Uh, so when you have a member of the State Department, United States State Department reach out to you because of the pit, then you know, like the disseminate, you needed that. I mean, that that disseminate, there's no way I could have disseminated that information to the masses to get where to where we are today with this congressional gold medal. We're moving it forward. I think in large part thanks to Dr. Joe Sachs, who wrote the episode in the pit. And so, which is, you know, changes the lives of many people in many different ways. Obviously, the Freedom House members are getting recognized with the highest medal of honor in the in the as a civilian in the country, but even paramedics everywhere of like, oh my gosh, this is my history, um, and just just people in general. And it's not black history, it's our history because it, you know, they were doing EKGs and intubating and all these things in the back of an ambulance before like emergency medicine was even a specialty. So all of that was kind of growing. So a lot of what I do in emergency medicine and first responder folks do is because of them. And you don't know who you are if you don't know your history. And so I think the way that this has touched so many people in so many different ways and how rewarding it's been, I would say that that would be the one storyline that I'm like, thank goodness. Thank goodness I had that trip to LA and I was like, there's one more thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Was there was there something that they were gonna do in a plot, for example, and you said, Oh, come on, guys, like, no way. This is really it's not how it happens in the ER.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Or yeah, no, um, so with with that, it was more I just was telling stories and they were writing it down. They did not share with me, which they couldn't really, because I'm not a writer, because they don't want the stories to leak out. So even Dr. Joe Sacks the whole time was like, We took these storylines from you, but you cannot tell anybody, you know, you gotta, you know, we gotta let it come out. So so I was more advising on what stories to tell, not how to tell the story.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

So, so then the then the pit came out. I mean, they got approved and they got, and obviously it's a huge hit show and it won awards and so on. What do you you know when you look when you watched the the show? What do you think they were most accurate about put portraying in the ER? Um, and they really, really did a good job at it when they talk about the ER.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Uh, I think the ebb and the flow of the ER, the busyness of the ER, the acuity of the ER. I mean, there's so many things, right? And that's why it makes it such a great show. It's hard to pinpoint because it all the accuracy of all the things coalescing together is what makes it work great, right? So, like, you can't be inaccurate about the flow and be accurate about the monitors, right? It doesn't make sense. So, like, you know, the you know, people have pet peeves, right? Medical drama pet peeves is like the monitor, like this this person's having in a lot of pain or having a heart attack and the heart rate's like 50, right? Um, or you're you know, they should be tachycardic and the heart rate says 50, or they're supposed to be hypoxic and they're on oxygen and it says 97% with a good waveform on the monitor, right? And so, like those fine-tuned details, procedural-wise, I think they've done phenomenal in ways that no other medical drama series, but even the overall, like I said, logistics of how an ED works, the ebb and the flow, the acuity, you know, from bouncing from the waiting room to the triage to the trainees of like poking, you know, as attending poking your head into one room, going to the other room, I think all of that coalesced together. And we're not even talking about uh the building of characters and those storylines and how they intermesh.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Um do you know why they wanted to choose Pittsburgh? Like, did they did you ever know why they chose Pittsburgh?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Yeah, I mean, why not? I mean, again, you have folk things like Freedom House, Dr. Peter Safar, the father of CPR, had the first liver transplant, Dr. Tom Starzle. This is a big health, it's a big healthcare center. And they they wanted to do something different besides the Seattles and the Chicago's and the big cities out there. Um, there's a lot of uh uh polio vaccine, right? Jonas Sulk. Um, so there's a lot, a lot of healthcare history here in Pittsburgh that's been overlooked for a while.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I am in the process of watching season two. I watched season one and season one, which I did watch it, I couldn't just stop to be honest. It's like it's uh but um two two things stood out. I mean, the the episode where there was a mass shooting was so intense, so intense, like I felt I was literally in the screen, like it it was I I the depiction of everything that happened was amazing. Uh um and I I I'd like you to comment on that. One thing I also wanted to comment on, I felt one of the things I was surprised with, I guess, is even the medical students were so knowledgeable. I'm like, I'm like, guys, I mean, I I was a medical student at some point, like they knew everything. Like it's it was it was pretty interesting how well the medical students did. I don't know if you had anything to do with this or not, but I felt their way like MS3 and MS4, they were pretty darn good. And I'm like, I don't think I knew any of that stuff when I was in MS2 or 3.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yes, I didn't have anything to do with the characters and the character building, but I agree. I I mean I I think I've heard a lot of people say that med students seem seem like working at a resident level. Yeah. Um, so that's hit or miss, right? Um, as we know in healthcare, in some institutes or in some situations, that's the case. Uh, and even in some rotations, if you get to the nitty-gritty and others, it's more likely not the case, in the sense of like especially the med students participating actively in procedures. Um, my experience has not been that as is is the most that I can say. That has not been my personal experience, although, you know, there were a few of us in med school, that the med school I went to that were eager beavers and pushed to do procedures and got to do lumbar punctures as med students uh at the University of Chicago and got to do some of the, I mean, guided, guided. Uh so um, but yeah, I I I agree. I don't, I that has not been my personal experience, is how I'll put that. The MCI was so actually my neighbor, Dr. Ron Roth, former Pittsburgh EMS Medical Director, was one of the advisors for that on how they do mass cash leave incidents in Pittsburgh. And yes, uh it was it was phenomenal and herring. Um, and I think I think they got the message across without having to say much. So I I did get a chance to meet John Wells after being at his studio. I met him briefly at his studio, um, but didn't want to interrupt him and didn't connect that it was actually John Wells, I hate to say. And then I left there and I looked at the side and I was like, oh my gosh, I shook hands with John Wells.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

You've got Noah Wally, it's you're good.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

I know. Um, but later on he came, he went to Carnegie Mellon University. He's an alumni from there, and he came for his fellowship program that he does, and he has a director's chair. And um he was explaining how the MCI they really wanted to impact, you know, the storyline around gun violence or gun prevention or whatever term you want to use without having to say the words. And so they really spent a lot of time basically to say, you know, like to understand that the implications of using a gun. And he said, nowhere throughout those scenes did anybody say gun violence, gun prevention, did anybody spell it out? Um, you know, the episodes, you know, spelled it out for you. And that's what they wanted. They wanted you to think of like, this is, you know, this is what can happen to this degree um when when it comes to guns and and improper use of guns and and things of that nature without having to spell it out.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

What what do you think the and I know that we're probably gonna get short on time because I know you're very busy, but what do you think the pit as a show did differently than other shows? Uh or it did or it didn't. Just we're like, you know, it seemed to me, I heard a lot of people that love it, they can't stop watching it. And um, although ER and Gray's Anatomy they had their heydays, but it seems to me that the reception of the pit was way more powerful. Um, do you agree with that or do you think they did anything?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

I do. I think I think they've I think it's a double-edged sword because you have you have two types of audiences with this, or an audience and non-audience. It has validated us as hell as first responders and ER physicians. Finally, I remember during COVID, the pots and pans and nothing against that, and seeing hero, hero, hero everywhere. And I'm like, really? We're heroes? Like, I didn't realize that we were heroes as doctors. Because in this day and age, it doesn't feel like it, you know, between electronic medical records, administration, you know, and RVUs, you know, really regulating, you know, feeling the crunch of everything outside of the medicine that you came to do. You don't really feel like a hero. Um, and then COVID, that was fleeting. It was like you're a hero. And then, you know, COVID got so politicized, it was like it was almost like it would have been better not to be called hero during that period at all. Then comes the pit, and it's like I'm validated now. Like because of the accuracy and because people are tuning in and people are starting to get it. You know, so the analogy is I use is I have there's a group of us, 10 girls from pediatric residency, that every Martin Luther King weekend we go for a girls' weekend. Um, and last, you know, in January 2025, we went to Puerto Rico and and they wanted to watch the pit. And I'm like, girls, we're in Puerto Rico on the beach. All right, so so we watched like episode one and two, and they were just baffled. They were just like, this is not real though, right? Like, you got you're not really this busy. People aren't really trying to die. I'm like, girls, you know me forever. This is the job that I do, and you didn't think this is the job that I did, you know. So then I was like, oh, the pit, you know, and I hear that about spouses of like relationships of like um, you know, husbands or or wives or partners or whatever. You know, the one partner's a first responder, emergency medicine doc, and and the other one turning around and being like, You this is what you really go through, this is what really happens. And it's like, I tell you this every night when I come home. So there's that validity, and it's there's so much validity to it that there's a cohort of emergency medicine doctors that it's too close to home that they don't want to watch the pit. Because it's like walking, it's like watching yourself at work all over again. Um so it's so powerful in both ways of like it's so real that it's like a little bit of PTSD for some, and others, it's just captivating. And for me, it I feel validated, and I feel like this is how you're shown to be a hero. Um, and so you know, that's what I love about the pit is that and and it is Noah Wiley will tell you it is a love letter to us, to first responders, emergency medicine doctors, healthcare providers, it is a love letter, and I feel that that it is. I I received that love letter. Whereas the other shows I think were shows for you know, for show's sake, you know, like every major network, if you think about it, has a medical drama series, right? It sells, it's the thing that you know, and I don't know if somebody, you know, you know, and it's not to say that the other executive producers or writers didn't put any love into it or thought into it or anything like that, but this is this is definitely different, the mindset that was put into this, you know, not be a medical drama for for medical drama sake.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah, that's what I meant. I mean sometimes these shows they want to have the ratings and the viewers and so on. So it takes for me to get the ratings, and then you come in, although you just met two, four hours, whatever that is, but you kind of bring that down. It's like, yes, you want the ratings, but it has to really portray what happens accurately. And as a viewer, it appears to me that they actually did listen to you and other advisors as they were portraying this. It did not, you know, like the few things we talked about about how powerful the medical students and so on. Yeah, I can over overlook that, but I felt it was actually very portrayable. I actually also felt there was good representation of backgrounds in terms of the people in the ER. And uh and they went into some tough topics, like they went into one of the physicians in the ER who was abusing substance abuse, right? I mean, that these are tough ones to actually tackle and and go into. Um, so I did not feel like they actually shied away from some of these difficult topics. Um, so so um maybe as we close, um, like you know, um it's a show obviously you recommend for everyone. Um for the non-medical viewers, I love you said you got validated because you feel people now understand what you are doing. If your friends didn't realize how busy you are and what you're doing, what is this the only thing you want uh the record to correct? That we're actually busy all the time before COVID, after COVID, it just COVID got us busier, or are there other misconceptions about ER and physicians in the ER that you feel the show helped validate and change the public perception on?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Uh yeah, that the it is a systemic problem, not an individual problem. You know, so a lot of times you have patients complain about the individual doctor, you're ordering all these tests because you want to get paid and you want to make money and you know, um, and you know, uh the priority of patients of, you know, some parents, for me, parents and pediatric patients of like, you're not paying attention to me, you're skipping me over. Um, you know, like taking away the burden on the individual provider, you know. So there's a lot of burden on the individual provider that we're the problem. But I think what the pit helps to show is that it's not the individual providers that are the are the are the problem. There's two things that they show the about the individual providers. One, we're human beings. Like, so to your point of Dr. Langdon and and and the the um drug use problem, right? Like we're not gods, we're human beings. Dr. Robbie and the breakdown in the pediatric room, you know, remembering his mentor, thinking back to COVID, that that these people that you interact with day in and day out who take care of your health care and are ordering these tests, we're not machines and we're not ordering these tests to be vindictive. And we also have lives and feelings and emotions. So that's one thing. And then we work within a broken system is the second thing. So I think it's done a great job to highlight that. So it's not so a lot of social media comments I'll get is oh, I was in the ED with my kid the other day, and I was so appreciative of all the ED providers. I'm so appreciative of what you've done, you know, after you know, watching the pit. Like any, any, any post that I do where I talk about advising for the pit, I get it. And and by the way, thanks for what you do, as opposed to, yeah, and and you guys do this, and you instead of, you know, in the real world with before the pit, it was like, and it still happens, like, you know, you guys, it's us versus them. But you know, now there's this perspective of no, they're just like me trying to take the best care, um, but working within a broken system.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Yeah. So as we close, uh uh Sylvia, you do a lot of work. Where can people find uh some of your work? How can they follow you and get to know more about you online, offline? I think uh I'm sure a lot of people would love to uh know more about you and and and get inspired by you.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yes, so my TikTok account is at dr Sylvia underscore o.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

I need to have those so I can tag you.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

So yeah, at Dr. Sylvia underscore O is my TikTok account. My Instagram account is at M D Owusu O W U S U. I also have my own website, which is drsilvia o.com, which talks about my upcoming book, my work with the pit, my short film. film and my a little bit, you know, my life story and my the upcoming things that I'm doing. So those are probably the main I'm also on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. Um but those are some of the main ways that people can connect, collaborate.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Of course. Are you on Twitter as well or no Twitter?

SPEAKER_00 44:16

I'm not on Twitter. I I feel like I've got so many, I got like five things going. I was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Yeah, no, no, that's good. We will all follow you and get to know uh about you more. Really appreciate. Sylvia, before I let you go, any other parting thoughts? Anything I may have completely overlooked, did not ask you that you really think my viewers and listeners would love to know about you, about the show, about your career, anything you'd like to leave us with?

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah, so speaking of oncologists, I am currently battling uh stage two B breast cancer. Uh I've finished six cycles of chemo, but I have been um I have been very open about my journey on social media because I think as a physician who is now a patient, it is very important to be able to advocate for your healthcare. It is very important to educate folks in this space uh to be able to speak up and to advocate and to know that they're not alone in this. So I hope my journey is helping people with cancer and without cancer and or or family members who have are people with cancer all all the like to help endure this really hard challenging diagnosis. So that would be the one thing I'd leave you with um heading for surgery I feel feeling very positive throughout my journey. There have obviously been some low points and challenging points chemo is no joke uh but overall I think positive attitude a healthy diet and community um keep the prognosis strong i i i'm confident you're gonna do great and I would love to have you after your surgery is complete and bring you back on the show.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

I would love to be back for joining me on Healthcare Unfiltered thank you for your insights thank you for sharing the stories it means a lot to us and I am confident that you are going to do excellent with the upcoming surgery thank you for sharing lots of the personal stories and the nuggets with the viewers and listeners. Folks don't forget to subscribe to the show let all of your friends and colleagues know about healthcare unfiltered we cover all healthcare topics from A to Z. And don't forget to subscribe to Healthcare Unfiltered Express which is the baby child of Healthcare Unfiltered where we talk about clinical issues specifically pertaining to oncology. Before I let you go I'm gonna leave you with a quote with a saying by Maya Angelou I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel until next time take care