Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah | UPMC Life Changers
Channel: UPMC
Date: 2024-04-04

Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah is an emergency medicine physician and medical director of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. In 2020, Dr. Owusu-Ansah helped to create the Career Help Advancement and Achievement Mentorship Program (CHAMP). The program provides education and mentorship, including CPR training, for underserved youth in western Pennsylvania.

Recently, Dr. Owusu-Ansah and UPMC emergency medicine physician Rickquel “Rikki” Tripp, MD, MD, MPH, CDR, USNR, began offering CPR training to other underserved groups.

The training has the potential for a tangible effect.

Research indicates that Black, Hispanic, and other minority communities receive CPR from bystanders at lower rates. The goal is to help improve health equity by providing CPR training to people in underserved communities.

“We know that underserved communities are not getting CPR to the degree that they should,” Dr. Owusu-Ansah says. “They don’t know CPR to the degree that they should. And it’s one of those simple fixes — like, let’s go teach them.”