11 Things You Should NOT Say to Patients: How to Replace the "Never-Words"

The 11 words and phrases identified as "never-words" in a paper published recently in Mayo Clinic Proceedings are often fall backs for clinicians when communicating with patients and families in the setting of a severe illness. "Engaging in sensitive, honest dialogue with seriously ill patients has become an even greater clinical challenge with the rapid progress in therapies for conditions such as advanced heart failure, cancer, and end-stage pulmonary disease," wrote the author trio from Henry Ford Hospital and Texas A&M University.

They emphasize the communication challenge for the clinician who has information to convey about treatments that are often complex and confusing and also hopes to set realistic expectations about outcomes. That task "still comes up against timeless patient experiences: fear, intense emotions, lack of medical expertise, physical pain, and the sometimes unrealistic hope for cure."

"Never-words," they explain, lack benefit, can lead to emotional harm. and magnify power differences between clinician and patient in some clinical contexts. The short slide show above provides 11 examples of the type and also alternatives as well as the authors' rationale for avoiding the language.