Spend any time in EMS social media spaces and a contrast becomes obvious very quickly.
Two people can look at the same call, the same policy or the same system failure with radically different outcomes. One offers thoughtful, experience-informed insight that helps a colleague think differently on their next shift. The other generates heat, certainty and engagement by tearing something apart. Both may call themselves influencers, but only one influences constructively.
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At its best, social media has become an informal classroom for EMS. It is where clinicians share hard-won lessons, leaders explain the “why” behind decisions, and educators translate complex concepts into something accessible. Done well, it narrows the gap between textbooks and the street, between policy and practice. These voices tend to speak with humility. They acknowledge that EMS is delivered in imperfect conditions by imperfect systems serving people on their worst days. Their posts rarely claim to have the answer; instead, they offer an answer, grounded in experience and open to discussion.
This kind of influence is quiet but powerful. It does not rely on outrage to be effective. It leaves room for disagreement, reflection and learning. It is rooted in intent rather than performance, and it is usually guided by a simple question: does this help someone deliver better care, work more safely, or think more clearly on their next shift?
Social media dangers
What increasingly concerns me is not any one voice or personality, but the power of the medium itself. Social media has become a weapons-grade device. It amplifies emotion, rewards certainty and compresses complex realities into easily consumed fragments. In the hands of thoughtful educators and leaders, that power can be transformative. Used carelessly, it can be deeply corrosive.
Those who have mastered the airwaves now command audiences that once took institutions decades to build. A smartphone, a ring light and a confident delivery can reach more EMS professionals in a single day than many formal education channels reach in a year. With that reach comes influence, and with influence comes responsibility, whether it is acknowledged or not. Popularity does not dilute accountability; it magnifies it.
This is where the line between influence and effluence begins to blur. Effluence often starts with a legitimate concern, but quickly turns performative. Context is stripped away. Systems are reduced to villains. Individuals become stand-ins for broader frustration. Engagement replaces understanding as the goal. The content travels fast, but it leaves damage behind: eroded trust, quieter leaders, clinicians less willing to share mistakes, and a profession increasingly suspicious of its own reflection.
Constructive challenge vs. destructive commentary
None of this is an argument against criticism. EMS needs critique, challenge and uncomfortable conversations. Progress has always depended on people willing to speak up. But there is a meaningful difference between constructive challenge and destructive commentary. One names problems in order to solve them. The other names targets in order to provoke reaction.
One invites dialogue. The other ends it.
Those who have spent time inside EMS systems understand how rarely problems have single causes or simple fixes. Decisions are shaped by staffing realities, funding constraints, regulation, labor agreements and community expectations.
“ It is easy to be definitive from behind a ring light. It is far harder when you are accountable for people, budgets, outcomes and patients. ”
The cleaner an answer sounds online, the less likely it reflects operational reality.
Andy Warhol once observed that everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. What he could not have imagined was a world where some now enjoy only 3 minutes; but 3 minutes every day — day after day — sustained not by insight alone, but by algorithms that reward repetition, certainty and outrage. In that environment, fleeting fame has become persistent influence, and persistent influence demands care.
Responsible influence
EMS does not need fewer voices; it needs more responsible ones. Influence should look like professionalism, curiosity and restraint exercised with purpose. The goal was never to win the internet. The goal was to care for patients, support colleagues and leave the profession stronger than we found it. Staying on the right side of that fine line is not about tone policing or silencing dissent. It is about recognizing that when the platform grows louder, the obligation to use it wisely grows with it.
