I find the comparison between medicine and computer science very interesting! I have never thought about it this way.
Could you elaborate on how you „dig back“? Do you read old papers / books? I imagine that one would have to dig through much old stuff that just isn‘t interesting until you find something that could be really usefull (like capability based security).
Look at the recent talks by Alan Kay, Ted Nelson, Joe Armstrong on YouTube. Watch "The Mother of all Demos" by Douglass Engelbart.
There is a lot of stuff online, just follow the threads. I've been pushing Capability Based Security for a decade... only in the last 6 hours did I learn that they had it at Xerox PARC, in an offhanded comment by Ted Nelson at the end of one of his videos, where he mentions the great ideas that got away.
One of my favorite talks by Joe Armstrong -- computer science, a guide for the perplexed. He talks through what he feels are some important but forgotten ideas in CS
