Who are also heavily trained in the physiology of the organs they operate on, long before they're allowed anywhere near a scalpel.

What you say about trades is true, but then we need to start making the distinction between software engineers and software technicians. I doubt that will go down well in an industry where everyone wants to be a senior software engineer, a tech lead or higher...

Interesting, in Mexico we do have that difference: We have got an "Informatics Technician" ( http://cecytev.edu.mx/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Informatica... ) and Informatics Licenciate ( http://www.uabc.mx/formacionbasica/FichasPE/Lic_en_Informati... ) with all the flavours (Software Engineer, CompSci, etc).

I only wish that Informatics Technicial would be more prepared. And that Software Engineers/Licenciates would really be worth their salt.

I'm thinking the physiology of the organs might be less complicated than understanding a modern applications at all levels of the stack.

Maybe that would be understanding the organs, the underlying physical processes those organs regulate, the chemicals that are released as parts of those processes, and the effects and composition of those chemicals, and if it is possible to induce similar effects through replacement chemicals in the way of medication.

I'd say the complexity is quite similar, but that technology is more well defined then biology. Each area can still be segmented into to layers of understanding. For instance I have very little experience with machine level programming, but I have a general idea abiut how the disk, ram, cpu and cache are connected. Enough information to design fast programs, but not enough to re engineer that layer myself. Above that layer I am well experienced all the way to configuring high level software packages. Below that layer, circuit design maybe, I am basically in the dark.

Biology is not much different, though there schooling seems to do a better job at exposing the student to all the layers we know about.