I suspect in some professions hubris is so important that people who tend to be humble simply don't make it in them. For example, Chuck Yeager complained about the arrogance of test pilots and I've heard a couple of times surgeons comparing themselves to fighter pilots. The difference, of course, is pilots kill themselves while surgeons kill their patients.
>I've heard a couple of times surgeons comparing themselves to fighter pilots.
The comparison is a good one, because we have figured out how to minimize the risks for fighter pilots, but doctors rebel when asked to adopt the same style of work.
Before taking off, all pilots - from Cessna to A360 - go through a pre-flight checklist. No pilot is expected to remember all the things that need to be checked - we know that we can't rely on memory. We tried this before, and people died.
Yet doctors only now are starting to adopt checklists, which are known to drastically reduce simple, avoidable deaths[1]. Things like rates of IV-induce infections go down to nearly zero when doctors stick to a checklist -- but many won't; the practice is met with skepticism even though it is known to work.
It took a long time for doctors to start washing their hands and stop killing people that way.
To drag this conversation into further despair; an airshow pilot in the UK is currently being charged for manslaughter for when he, allegedly, negligently performed a risky manoeuvre and survived a crash that killed 11 people.
A drunk, alcoholic US Navy surgeon gave my grandmother a radical hysterectomy instead of an appendectomy, involuntarily sterilizing her. She had my father first, at least.
It's also pertinent to recall that surgeons evolved with and into the medical field from surgeon-barbers... yes, the people who give shaves and cut hair also used to cut into people.
I used to be friends with a surgeon and based on what he told me you need to have a certain level of hubris or arrogance to do that job. He told me of situations during surgery where he had to make a quick decision that could have either severely harmed the patient or led to success. He also knew cases where he had made the wrong decision. It requires a certain kind of person to take that responsibility and live with it.
I wonder if the humble ones are the ones that will adapt best to robotic surgery.
If that ends up being case then 'choosing a human' may quickly become a Market for Lemons situation - you might have gotten better outcomes from human surgeons except the only ones still doing it by hand are full of themselves and too proud to admit they are human and make mistakes.
I'm so sorry about your dad.