Table 2.

Veterans’ inadequate knowledge of pulmonary nodules

“Holy crap, what the heck is a lung nodule?” (Veteran Q)

“Well, what the hell is a lung nodule? And I still don’t know.…Where did it come from, why is it there, is it cancerous?” (Veteran G)

“I don’t even know what a lung nodule is. I don’t know if it’s like a nice way of saying a tumor or some unknown blobby mass.” (Veteran H)

“Well, I’d like to find out what a “nodule” is. What are the odds of it turning malignant? What’s the different between a nodule and a tumor?” (Veteran B)

“What are nodules? How do you get them? Where do they come from?” (Veteran M)

“I looked up ‘nodule’ in a dictionary and it says ‘a knob’ so that doesn’t tell me anything. Is it something big, small? What does it do to affect your breathing? But when you don’t know anything, you’re kind of in the dark.” (Veteran E)

“First of all, what is a nodule? I don’t know what—just a dark spot on X-rays?” (Veteran K)

“It’s kind of—hearing ‘nodule’ it’s like in that movie Armageddon when they talked about ‘anomalies.’ Stop with this ‘anomaly’ horse-shit. Tell me what it really is. Stop with the ‘nodule’ thing. What’s really going on? It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even know what a ‘nodule’ is. A spot? A pocket of weirdness?” (Veteran I)