I'm one of those who made the jump from programming to medicine. I consulted during medical school, but programming is much more fun as a hobby than it ever was as a career, and I'm past the bad days where I had sleepless nights and long call. Residency still sucks but even that is getting relatively more humane.
I'd never go back to programming as a career unless medicine became completely untenable, and I doubt that's going to happen at the level I'm at now.