It you use Twitter to follow anybody in EMS, you will certainly have hard that the son of FDNY Fire Commissioner has now resigned from his position as an EMT for his use of the 140 character microblog service. Now, the FDNY isn't going to have a problem with the use of the service, but they will have a problem with derogatory comments that affect much of their vast community.
The New York Daily News (Article) is one of many news agencies that has carried this story. Joseph Cassano started to take heat as news of his twitter posts began to hit the wires. The Fire Commissioner's son was using the Twitter service to express his displeasure at population groups following calls in the capacity of EMT. Now, evidently his motives for serving in the FDNY EMT corp was to gain a position in the fire department that his dad serves as the leader. While serving in this capacity, Mr. Cassano made racist and insensitive remarks about people that he was called to serve, as well as to talk about how bad his job was and how he couldn't wait till he made it to the FDNY fire division.
Now, Mr. Cassano isn't the first person in the emergency services realm to use social media as an outlet for negative comments about patients we serve. In fact, I have been witness to it from a local perspective which extends outside of Police, Fire and EMS. I have witnessed it form other emergency medical personnel, city support staff, and many many others. Here is my question, as public servants, is there any place for this type of activity?
Now, before I start a conversion, or lively debate, about the First Amendment; I do whole heartedly support the Constitution of the United States and would do anything to support it. My objection isn't to an agency not having a policy in place to censor employees responses, I just think that there should be a level of professionalism associated with our careers that we can find ways to affect change other than posting negative comments about the patients we are paid to serve. Honestly, if we had no patients, if there were no wrecks, if there were no fires, if there were no negative situations where would police fire and EMS be.
As a Police, Fire, or EMS leader, you must also be sure that you are maintaining a professional image. This is a complex and sticky situation. How do you control a large number of individuals, maintain a professional image, and keep in compliance with the first amendment. Well, when it comes to social media, you hire all the individual in your organization to serve as your public information officers. Think about it, right now you look at your organization and see what kind of network actually exists and you will find that it has the potential for tremendous impact in your community. Now, creating a social media policy (EMS WORLD - SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY TEMPLATE) and developing a training program, you can use your personnel to get the emergency services word out to the public. Do you have a public event that you would like to get a large crowd to, employee your employees to start the tweets and the posts, and you will develop a great following. To keep this positive you must work with you people and ensure a positive work environment that has a tremendous espirit de corp. Allowing your employees to lose morale can be degrading to your plans for social media grandeur, but it can be done.
Help increase the professionalism in Fire/EMS by developing a great social media program, that involves your employees, and your community. Develop a program that will benefit your community not bring them together to take you down.
Take Care and Stay Safe
Combomedic - David Blevins
twitter.com/dsblev
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