Tech Physicians

My uncle was a physician, he was a great physician because of his intuition. Sure, years of education gave him the knowledge base to draw from, but much of diagnostics was intuition. You can add up symptoms, you can evaluate conditions based on empiricism but most doctors will tell you that diagnostics is part science and part art.

Qualified computer technicians should be called computer physicians. They ask questions, they refer to their personal histories and their knowledge base but the really great computer physicians I have known have a 6th sense. Such is the case with many of the helpdesk tech’s in our department. I am not equating the value of the human tech with the value of the computer tech, but am I?

I made a tech call for a computer orientation yesterday for a new employee and part of that process is to have the new employee fill out an emergency contact form. They knew their own cell, but admitted they didn’t know their significant other’s. We both laughed at how dependent we have become.

Certainly on a level, based on our overwhelming dependency on tech, the tech physicians, like teachers in our culture deserve elevation in our esteem. Just think what your life would be like if you called the help desk and the response was “Sorry, but I have no idea.”