Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico. (Associated Press)

Cancer patients may soon have their course of treatment chosen by a computer rather than a doctor after scientists devised mathematical formulas that are better than humans at predicting how sufferers will respond to chemotherapy. (The Telegraph)

Rejecting the Medicaid expansion in the federal health care law could have unexpected consequences for states where Republican lawmakers remain steadfastly opposed to what they scorn as “Obamacare.” (Associated Press)

The husband of an Essex breast cancer patient believes her life was cut short after she was put on an end-of-life care plan despite her reluctance. (BBC)

If physicians are shown the price of diagnostic tests, they order fewer or lower-priced tests, but this applies only to inexpensive tests, U.S. researchers say. (UPI)

The Boston Marathon bombings caused injuries resulting in many traumatic limb amputations. Recent advances have made recovery less onerous for today’s amputees. (Los Angeles Times)

While many young adults are now covered by the Affordable Care Act, able to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26, the rules are different for those like Cox-Reed, who grew up in the foster care system. (CNN)

Hospitals make money from their own mistakes because insurers pay them for the longer stays and extra care that patients need to treat surgical complications that could have been prevented, a new study finds. (New York Times)

The rate dropped 12% from 2005 to 2011, with improvements among all major racial and ethnic groups, a government report says. (Los Angeles Times)

Finding and vaccinating Nigerian nomads may be one of the last obstacles to the eradication of polio. (Nature)

Many highly skilled doctors and health professionals of African birth practice cutting-edge medicine and surgery in leading medical institutions outside Africa. They are valuable to the hospitals and countries they work in but their hearts are also at home in their native countries. (CNN)

In a couple of years, we will learn something new that changes everything all over again. But what we know right now could change a child’s life. (CNN)

At the end of life, black patients with kidney failure receiving chronic dialysis are less likely to be referred to hospice and to discontinue dialysis compared with white patients, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). (News-Medical)

Despite all that drug-enforcement agents and regulators are doing to fight prescription painkiller abuse, the most effective combatant might turn out to be a computer algorithm. (Wall Street Journal)

A new issue of Nurses Philosophy (Vol 14, No 2, April 2013) is now available online and in print.

Articles of interest include:

• Doctor? Who? Nurses, patient’s best interests and treatment withdrawal: when no doctor is available, should nurses withdraw treatment from patients? by Giles Birchley
• An internal morality of nursing: what it can and cannot do by Roger A Newham
• Nurses as ‘guests’– a study of a concept in light of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of hospitality by Stina Oresland et al.

The crisp, stucco exterior of an Oklahoma dental clinic concealed what health inspectors say they found inside: rusty instruments used on patients with infectious diseases and a pattern of unsanitary practices that put thousands of people at risk for hepatitis and the virus that causes AIDS. (CBS News)

In England, hospital is still the most common place for patients with cancer to die but an increase in home and hospice deaths since 2005 suggests that the National End of Life Care Programme (a Programme to promote the rollout of national end-of-life care initiatives) has helped more people to die at their preferred place of death, according to a UK study funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR) Programme, published in this week’s PLOS Medicine. (Medical Xpress)

Viewing patients as consumers may be detrimental to the doctor-patient relationship. While it facilitates an emphasis on respect for patient autonomy, it inadvertently results in the commodification of health care. The new legislative environment in South Africa promotes the protection of patient rights. It may, however, contribute to increased medical litigation. (BMC Medical Ethics)

Today, our body temperature can be scanned from a distance quickly and simply. For a busy Mom with a sick child, this is a great idea. Just pointing a sensor at a spot of skin and obtaining an ‘instant’ reading is a real advance from the intrusive glass thermometers and touch scanners of yesterday. (Forbes)

Government ministers and the NHS ignored warnings about persistently high death rates in hospitals which could have claimed the lives of up to 20,000 patients, a top health adviser has said. (Huffington Post)

In a historic first, the American Journal of Public Health has devoted an issue to covering stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses, a topic that traditionally is under-researched and under-reported. (News-Medical)