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Discussion on: Even the Big Ones Mess Up

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thebouv profile image
Anthony Bouvier

Modern medicine is built upon trial and error. LOTS of mistakes made. People died because of those mistakes.

Think about what a doctor does and what a software developer does. It is very much a debugging exercise. "What hurts? When did it start? What factors surrounded this happening? Does it hurt when you do this? Or only this?"

They're debugging you. And when pressed, they'll admit: they're doing what they can with the info they have and there is no 100% solution most likely. They are taking guesses; educated guesses of course. But guesses.

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danilapetrova profile image
Danila Petrova

I don't think I have seen a better explanation of what a doctor does. Entirely on point, and to be honest, it makes me even more grateful people are willing to pick up the role to debug us, humans.

Fact is that it is impossible not to make mistakes, whatever it may be we set out to do. And the world as we know it is built by mistakes and takeaways from them. Without error, we would still be playing it safe in caves with flint fire.

We have to mention that, the level of responsibility is vastly higher with doctors than that of a software developer, or any other profession, really.