Doctors make a lot of mistakes too, just like programmers. But with doctors, it's easy to blame it on the vagaries of the human body. So even when the "cure"

Doctors make a lot of mistakes too, just like programmers. But with doctors, it's easy to blame it on the vagaries of the human body. So even when the "cure" doesn't, people expect that because of the differences between individual bodies. This gives them a pass of sorts when they screw up, the medicine doesn't work, the side-effects kill you, you get a fatal infection in the hospital, etc. With programming, if you are designing the control system for an aircraft and it fails, people will be able to find out exactly what failed and why, and who to blame. It's hard to compare doctors and programmers, because there are many levels of medical professionals, just like there are many levels of programming.