Tiffany Osborn, MD, MPH

I’m going to say up front, I’ve had a great career that brought a great deal of joy, satisfaction, and sense of purpose and contribution. Generally, I have loved what I do. I received opportunities to train with amazing people at unique places. I worked with colleagues and forged a career path in EM/CC that did not exist at the time. Along the way, within the combined field of EM/CC, I became the first female full professor in the United States. Most of my career has centered on taking care of the most vulnerable patients at their most vulnerable times – focusing on sepsis. With hard work, I developed over 20 years of clinical, research, health policy, and process improvement experience through national and international collaborations with groups such as the CDC, CMS, the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, the New York State Department of Health, the Dr. Foster’s Group, and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. My career started off with more research, then evolved into process improvement with the hospital, health system, and national projects.
I view my role as a guide and advisor. I am approachable but will also be very straight forward.

I grew up in a middle-class family in Texas. My father taught history in a San Antonio, TX high school for several years until he decided that he wanted luxuries for his family – like rent. Ultimately, he became a paramedic/fireman and retired as a Battalion Chief. My mother grew up very under resourced, in a family that found little value in formal education. I don’t know how someone grows up in that environment and somehow understands that education is her way to a better life. She was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She left college when kids came and returned about 20 years later when I started college. She ultimately earned a master’s degree. We even took some classes together. I learned that life if often what we focus on. There was a lot we did not have. However, my family provided more love, support, and protection than I knew what to do with growing up (..especially as a teenager on Saturday night – my dad followed me – a few times).
After graduating medical school in San Antionio, Tx, I started EM residency at the University of Maryland. In my last year, ED overcrowding really started ramping up. I realized we were managing critically ill patients for days and decided to do a critical care fellowship. I thought it would help me in the ED, but while in the fellowship, I realized critical care needed to be part of my life. At that time, there was no path to board certification in critical care and no guarantee that training would confer jobs. After fellowship, I went to Europe to take their critical care boards and worked with a core group of EM/CCM colleagues and ABEM to assist development of a EM/CC board certification pathway from the background – which occurred in 2011. I learned to follow my passion and that things that seem impossible, are – until they are not. To make the impossible, possible takes strategy, timing, and teamwork.
When my husband was transferred to England, our family moved to a small village about 15 miles outside of Cambridge, where we lived for 5 years. While there, I got a MSc in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, became the trial clinician for ProMISe – a sepsis study, and made lifelong friends.

I’ve been at Washington University for 13 years now – wow, hard to believe. Within the first couple of years, I was tasked to assist with BJH sepsis outcomes by the CMO. During my tenure, the mortality index decreased by about 35% and our national ranking for sepsis outcomes increased by about 65% – which led to becoming the Sepsis Physician Champion for the BJC system. During COVID I took over several administrative projects and transferred the sepsis teams to the very capable Dr. Chris Holthaus who built upon the foundations and took it to new and better levels. During COVID I oversaw the COVID Critical Care Task Force, the Convalescent Plasma Program, and the Crisis and Contingency Standards of Care Program among other projects.
I am married the most amazing man ever 26 years ago. We have two kids who recently left the house and two cats that stayed. I feel blessed to have such wonderful family and friends in my life.