CJEM Debate Series: #SocialMedia – Social media has created emergency medicine celebrities who now influence practice more than published evidence

Dr. Peter Cameron, former President of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, academic, and clinician, makes the argument that social media presents us with the dangerous potential of style over content as he argues for the motion, with Drs. Simon Carley and Scott Weingart, both active academics, clinicians, and social media leaders, responding to reassure us that newer forms of online information sharing will help us improve what we do, and respect an evidence-based approach.Post-publication review, widely shared, in a public space, and with the ability to react in real time is surely a way forward to increase the distribution and interpretation of published evidence, and this is what the current crop of blogs, podcasts, and other social media platforms aim to do under the #FOAMed (Free Open Access Medical Education) banner,9a more bespoke and focused subset of social media with an aim to improve clinical practice.10 The #FOAMed platforms permit, and arguably encourage, creators and consumers to use data in new ways, to operationalize research and translate it into something that is pragmatic and deliverable in the clinical setting.Real-world clinical decisions are far more complex than that and require the discussion and interpretation of any published evidence in relation to the clinical setting, cost, patient group, and the abilities of the clinicians who might be required to deliver it.[...]critics frequently fall into the cognitive trap of suggesting that the consumer is both unable to discern the quality of information from celebrities via social media whilst simultaneously suggesting that if the information was presented in a different (that is, traditional) method they would be perfectly capable of doing so.