I've gone the other way. I started out as a medical tech. It's the same thing every hour, every day. Usher in a patient, do a test. Usher in a patient, do a test. There's no real scope for 'using your mind', but you are directly helping people. At least I saw patients - some medical scientists do nothing but pippette things all day, doing pretty much the same thing as assembly-line factory work. I know one that got RSI of the elbow from endless pippetting.
If you want to 'use your mind' to help people, then either get a job that has some form of diagnostics in healthcare, or build healthcare products in a company in the industry. I moved from medical tech to support at a company that made our equipment to R&D in the same company. You can still do IT things and help people in a medical sense. Just because you don't see the patients directly doesn't mean that the software you build isn't helping them.
It sounds like you've found a good place to be, but I thought I'd throw in my 2c that IT is not a sort of 'by definition not helping'.
Sorry yes I was being rather general and should clarify that I ended up down the wrong path in my software work, didn't feel that I could change to anything more interesting - and really just desired a fresh start.
I do appreciate that there are fields in IT where one can make more of a difference, and I hope it works out well for you!
If you want to 'use your mind' to help people, then either get a job that has some form of diagnostics in healthcare, or build healthcare products in a company in the industry. I moved from medical tech to support at a company that made our equipment to R&D in the same company. You can still do IT things and help people in a medical sense. Just because you don't see the patients directly doesn't mean that the software you build isn't helping them.
It sounds like you've found a good place to be, but I thought I'd throw in my 2c that IT is not a sort of 'by definition not helping'.