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Responding to an e-consult: the development and validation of a protocol for the doctor From Media Synchronicity Theory and the so-called egocentrism hypothesis, it is predicted that answering a patient message in an e-consultation in comparison with the face-to-face consultation places a number of specific requirements to ensure that the patient values the communication positively. These requirements have been elaborated on the basis of a number of preliminary studies and converted into a protocol against which a doctor's answer can be tested. In a main study, (a) it was investigated to what extent answers that advanced medical students create without any prior instruction comply with the protocol and (b) whether answers that meet the protocol to a higher degree indeed receive a higher rating from patients than answers that don't comply with the protocol. The latter appears to be the case. Because it appears that e-consultations of many medical students do not yet comply with the protocol, we can conclude that this protocol can form the basis for training doctors and medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]