The Social Media Medic

Social media is a wonderful thing.  It truly is.  For me, as both a paramedic and an attorney, it has been a godsend.  I’ve made a lot of friends that I’d have never known otherwise.  And, especially for medicine, it’s exposed me to a lot of new topics that enable me to give the best possible care to my patients.  The discussions in both law and medicine (and the combination of the two at times) make me think and grow in both professions.

However, there’s an old adage that applies. Caveat Emptor.  That’s Latin for “Let the buyer beware.” Like I said, social media is often a good thing, especially in EMS. But while it gives everyone a voice, its downside is that it gives everyone a voice, including those that might not be the best to listen to.

There’s a category of people I call the “Social Media Medic.” They’re the first to jump into a discussion with absolute certainty and moral clarity as to how you should be practicing medicine and what kind of person you should be. They protect their brand by saying all the right things because, often, their brand is the only thing they have and that’s how you get to make it on the EMS conference circuit. The “Social Media Medic” is often full of buzzwords and hashtags about EMS and medicine.  They’re often posting studies and blogs that promote them and/or their agenda. Sometimes, some of these people don’t even understand the study that they’re sharing. On social media, these people say all the right things.  They have the right hashtags.  They have the message down.  They might even be right.  But we rarely have a way to confirm that the loudest voice is the most correct voice.  Heck, on more than one occasion, I’ve found that some of the loudest voices who are the most insistent that they are right about medicine are those who are virtually unemployable in their field, often because their social media personality is a reflection of their actual personality of being an insufferably arrogant buffoon.  In other words, what the Greeks used to call sophmoric, literally a “wise fool.”

I’ll admit that I’ve been active on social media.  Some might even say I’m too active. They might be right. The truth is that I’m far from God’s gift to EMS.  I make mistakes daily and I don’t get enough time to do as much medicine as I’d like to be truly proficient. After all, as Clint Eastwood said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Hence, I rarely post about actual clinical issues in EMS.  It’s just not something I feel that I have the expertise or status to comment on with any authority. Now, legal issues, politics, volunteering, or professionalism are areas I feel qualified to comment on, so I do such.

In short, the loudest voice isn’t always the voice we need to be listening to.  And that especially rings true in EMS social media.