LAUSR

should embrace these advantages and use them to improve the patient-doctor interactions. It would have been interesting if the specific strategies to dealing with e-patients were explored further in the paper. Nonetheless, we recommend teaching medical students how to advise patients on suitable online sources, which can be done by creating a database of patientappropriate sites that contain accurate information that students can refer to. Basic strategies for assessing new websites, e.g. using the CREDIBLE system (Eysenbach 2002) should also be taught. This will allow us to be accepting of new sites presented by patients as well as teach patients how to assess websites themselves. Finally, we should be taught how to deal with situations where the patient is doubting our advice and when misinformation occurs as this is often the most difficult aspect of e-patient consultations. Alongside online modules and simulation sessions, doctors should be encouraged to involve students when e-patients arise in consultations, as this allows us to learn from the experience firsthand. Furthermore, the online modules should contain an assessment to test for understanding and retention of information. Likewise, we also recommend that competency in dealing with e-patients should be assessed in objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) in order to cement understanding. In conclusion, we thank Herrmann-Werner et al. (2019) for highlighting the importance of dealing with e-patients.