Programming and brain surgery have very little overlap. I would actually argue that brain surgery is far more about having a confident, steady hand, and less about raw smarts. Undoubtebly, brain surgeons typically have above average IQs, but so do programmers.

Numerous studies have placed the typical IQ of software developers to be in the >120 range. That's between 1 and 2 σ , or somewhere around higher than 90% of the population.

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students...