Introduction
Dear Editor,
We read the publication named Usefulness of WhatsApp
for Discussing Difficult Cases in Pathology Practice: A
Moroccan Experience. with great interest [
1]. Bennani
and Sekal mentioned that Sharing microphotographs
of histopathological or cytological cases via WhatsApp is
a very easy and fast method to obtain a second opinion in
pathology practice and also to discuss difficult cases [
1]. We
would like to share our ideas on this report. First, there is
no doubt that e-communication is useful in medicine. The
application of telemedicine can be helpful in diagnostic
pathology. The use of WhatsApp has been proven to be
useful for pathology training [
2]. Nevertheless, there are
many issues to be recognized. First, sharing a patients data
on the network via WhatsApp is an exposure of private
data to a third party. This has to be carefully done and there
should be ways of guaranteeing the patients privacy [
3].
Protecting the patients privacy is necessary. As noted by
Saranto et al., lack of patient data privacy can affect patient
safety [
4]. Crane and Gardner noted that it is necessary to
have standard guidelines for pathologists who use social
media professionally [
5]. The developed guidelines will
help prevent unwanted and unexpected problems due to
loss of patient privacy during network communication.
