Just Stop It! Eliminating the word “Just” in Patient Communications

There are many reasons to eliminate the word just in our day-to-day communications. While I focus on my patient perspective here, there are other places in our speech when “just” minimizes who we are and what we bring to the table.

1. Just Minimizes our Individual Experiences

We all come into our appointments from profoundly different situations. While we may check in to the same desk, sit in the same chairs, walk through the same doors, and see the same doctors, we are not the same. What may be easy for me may be anxiety-producing for you.

I remember sitting in the interior waiting room for one of my biopsies. Around me were other patients. Some were there for their annual mammograms, others for additional imaging, and then there was me. I was there because my MRI had shown some findings that hadn’t been detected through ultrasound and mammography. I already had a DCIS diagnosis, and these biopsies had the potential to change my treatment plan. I’d fainted for my first biopsy and had no idea how these would go.

As the other patients worried about whether the imaging might be cancer, I sat there, wondering if I should share what might be in their future.

We all had different lived experiences. I could easily begin to think that while some of them were there “just” for imaging, and I was there for a biopsy, it was much more reasonable for me to be anxious.

But was that really the case? I had no idea what experiences led them to that waiting room or their emotional state.

Using the word “just” minimizes our individual experience and limits our ability to connect.

It isn’t “just” a mammogram—or “just” a biopsy. What may be commonplace to do in an imaging center may bring back uncomfortable experiences to us.

Our individual experiences matter.

2. Just Implies that Our Emotions aren’t Valid.

In 2022, my imaging revealed something that needed to be biopsied. As I sat in the ultrasound room, I relived the trauma of breast cancer. When the radiologist said I needed a biopsy, I knew it was much more than “just” a biopsy. It was not “just” a precaution. Finding out I needed a biopsy sparked fear, anxiety, and a flashback to the emotional challenges of 2019.

I don’t know if my care team used the word “just” in the conversation. But I do remember the team trying to talk me through the future procedure in the hopes of easing my anxieties. I stopped them in their tracks. I ensured they understood that I had been through the procedure before and had many emotions surrounding biopsies. I’m well aware of the importance of biopsies in the diagnostic process, but that knowledge does nothing for my feelings. There was no “justing” me out of my shock. The emotions were real.

There was nothing they could do at that moment to ease my stress. I would feel that stress until I talked to my surgeon, and he agreed I needed that biopsy. And then, I would have to go through the biopsy procedure again and wait for the results. Again.

“Just” a biopsy doesn’t exist for me. Not only is the procedure difficult for me to endure while awake (don’t get me started), but the anxieties leading up to and after are no walk in the park for me. My sleep is disturbed, my stomach goes into knots, and my temper is short.

What may be a simple next step to order in the diagnostic process may spark challenging emotions for us. In those moments, when we learn that our lives may be changed, the feelings are real. While the medical team may know that a certain percentage of biopsies come back benign, the statistics don’t matter to us. What does matter are our feelings and how we process this unexpected news.

Our emotions matter. The word “Just” doesn’t help us feel any less anxious.

3. Just Makes Words Easier for the Speaker and Harder for the Receiver.

When the word “just” comes out in a medical setting, it is often spoken by someone responsible for orchestrating my care. It could be a tech, a nurse, a surgeon, an oncologist, a radiologist, or an office staff member. My care team talks to hundreds of patients. They see a range of people with all kinds of conditions. They have seen such a tapestry of health that it makes sense for them to triage, perhaps in situations where triage isn’t a necessary part of the job.

A radiologist who orders a biopsy may order ten a day. It is routine. My biopsy may be yet another one on the list. It is a vital part of their practice, and whether I want to admit it or not, sometimes I truly am another patient who “just” needs a biopsy to double-check a finding.

That may be the case, but when I hear the word “just” in front of a procedure that has been difficult for me to deal with, it makes it much harder to listen to the rest of the sentence.

Just doesn’t make it easier for me to cope with it.

Just doesn’t make it easier to hear the words.

Receiving news like that, couched in “just,” cuts deep. Because what if it feels awful to receive that news? To me, it isn’t “just” DCIS. It means that I’m a cancer patient. It means that I can’t get life insurance. It means I have to live with the fear of recurrence for the rest of my life.

Just doesn’t make it easier to deal with the next steps.

Just may make delivering news easier for the speaker, but it doesn’t help the receiver.