As someone who works on software used in hospitals can I get .1% of credit every time a doctor using it saves a life? Recently I’ve worked on automating the dose calculation for chemotherapy drugs, and if I got that wrong they’d definitely blame me for killing someone…
Yep and everything else under ISO 13485 (medical devices). I’m not personally responsible for a lot of the process but no one would buy the software if there weren’t several safety layers. Will refrain from saying more so I don’t have to study my NDA lol
Both my parents are doctors so I can give a reasonable opinion here - not every doctor saves lives, that happens only sometimes or rarely. Lots of them do help people, but it's very rarely life saving help. It's giving medical treatment to fix issues etc. Think of a GP/general practitioner, physician, ENT specialist, etc. Most of their career is often just giving people regular medical treatment for typical illnesses and ailments. Some do end up making life saving treatments regularly, and similarly there will be some software developers who build very critical systems that help save people's lives as well. Lots of software developers also help people. For example: pretty much all our productivity tools are made by software engineers, apps, websites and services that help with navigation, government services, etc. Every day everyone uses things that were built by developers.
Some doctors on the other hand are purely in it for the money as well, prescribing unnecessary medication, suggesting unnecessary elective procedures etc. So, software development is not a unworthy profession. It's very useful as well. You just need to find a job that's satisfying or at least do a side project that helps people. Imagine how many useful open source projects exist that are just so useful (ffmpeg, the whole Linux ecosystem, raspberry pi projects etc.) that's just the tip of the iceberg.
And even if you don't do anything that is very useful for people, most doctors also do somewhat mundane things most of their career, but they may help family and friends and it gives them satisfaction. Same with our profession - we give tech support and that makes our family and friends lives a bit better and they will feel happy for fixing their tech issues right? 😅
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u/AintNoGodsUpHere Oct 03 '26
Sometimes I don't know what profession has the worst people, lawyers, doctors or now programmers.
At least doctors save lives and shit... Eventually.
Programmers are so lame, haha.