Combat Medic

The doctor is ready to see you. All of you.

"Death or healing: I care not which you seek."

— Space Marine Apothecary, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Being the designated healer is a necessary job, but it isn't a glamorous one. While everyone else is having all the fun mixing it up with the bad guys, the medic is stuck in the back watching life bars go up and down, and throwing out the occasional Status Buff. Then again, they don't want to be up front, because they're squishy as hell and everyone's gunning for them. This is usually not a problem when one player's controlling an entire party, but this starts to break down in cases where one guy's playing the support. While some are perfectly fine with this (being the medic means you'll get invited to just about any party), for others, the support classes just aren't that exciting.

The solution? Give The Medic some teeth, and you've got yourself a Combat Medic.

While a Combat Medic still serves as the primary healer and buffer, they have the ability and incentive to leap into the trenches and kick some ass, too. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, including 'protective auras' that buff nearby allies while the medic fights, or attacks that simultaneously heal the medic's allies. Enemies that try to Shoot the Medic First will find that they won't go down as easy as they expected when they can create impenetrable force fields or just swat them into the stratosphere. Last but not least, certain tactics can make their harmless powers lethal, like casting revive on enemies when Revive Kills Zombie.

The militant medic isn't unique to video games, either; healers often find it necessary to pick up some combat ability and kick a few asses every now and then if they don't want to be stuck in the background. After all, in an action series, the Hippocratic Oath is a rather overrated thing, and the Geneva Convention is simply quaint and obsolete.

The Combat Medic may also overlap with a Bare-Fisted Monk, or a monk wielding a Power Fist. Some games do in fact give the monk limited healing capabilities, or a few self-heals. This is linked to Shaolin Monks knowing Martial arts and the term "monk" often being synonymous with a religious figure. Since religious figures almost always are Healers, this explains why it is often used.

Compare The Paladin. The Magic Knight is rather similar, though defense-oriented Magic Knights tend to be focused on fighting first and healing second. Contrast The Red Mage, a mage who knows healing and attack magic. Another RPG fantasy class that greatly resembles this is the cleric, who is usually a religious warrior healer. The laws of balance must also state that a pure healer would have to outclass them in healing and that a Combat Medic Paladin or a monk that can heal has to sacrifice some common healing traits to be able to take a few hits. But this only really applies when you have a group-oriented game, especially an MMORPG, because why would you roll a squishy-healer when you can roll a Combat Medic that can take a few hits and heal just as good either way? In a solo game, it's not uncommon for a Game-Breaker to be just like that.

Note that this is Truth in Television. During World War II, military medics were supposed to go into combat with no weapons and treat the wounded of either side. However, German medics were often armed with pistols, and this led Allied soldiers to be somewhat skeptical of the non-combatant status of German medics, as taking up a weapon meant the medic forfeited his protection under the Geneva Convention and was treated as a regular combatant, regardless of any distinguishing insignia he wore, and from the German side, troops like the SS even made it a point to use wounded soldiers as bait to lure allied soldiers out and shoot them, forcing the medics to take up arms and protect themselves. In the Pacific and the Eastern Front, there were no niceties at all — both sides considered medical personnel fair game, though for the Japanese it wasn't so much that they actively targeted medical personnel, more that they had no concept of noncombatant medics; to them, a soldier was a soldier. In fact, by the end of 1941, medics in the Russian Theater even stopped wearing medical handbands because they both were useless and painted them brighter as targets. Nowadays, this trope is even encouraged in real life, due to the fact that most modern armies engage in combat with forces that do not respect the Geneva conventions.

Sub-trope of Support Party Member.

Not to be confused with Deadly Doctor, a medical doctor who fights with medical knowledge and equipment. This trope is more general: a doctor who fights (in which case, compare Martial Medic).

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Example subpages:

• Video Games

Game examples:

Play-by-Post Games

• Dr. Landon from Darwin's Soldiers starts off as a civilian surgeon rescued by the main characters, but is more than happy to pick up a pistol and becomes more combat proficient as he survives the teams' various firefights. Also Sharon Redfield, the medic and third-in-command of Cobalt Squad, is a military example.
• Dietrich "Medic" Luzwheit, Zenna, and Marco Martinet in Dino Attack RPG are among Dino Attack Team's few medics who are also soldiers, and as such, they are usually fighting Mutant Dinos while healing patients on the battlefield.
• Fire Emblem on Forums: Anyone who takes a class with access to Staves and any offensive proficiency is this by default if they choose to specialise into Healing Staves, such as Butlers/Maids or Troubadours, who can take any physical weapon in addition to staves.
  • Solrise Academy: Andreas Bellamy, who carries a large sword as his main armament and uses his Arte, Restoration to heal allies at the cost of his own health.

Tabletop Games

• The BattleTech wargame doesn't actually have a proper medic class, but down at the tactical level with the Mechwarrior RPG, field medic builds are invaluable. Any character can carry a handful of medpatches or a medkit to handle minor cuts and bruises, and most will take a rank of First Aid to improve their effectiveness, but due to the harder nature of the setting (lacking resurrection or instant healing) having at least one player character with several ranks in Med-Tech and/or Surgery is common. As it turns out, the stats that control medical prowess also turn field medics into fantastic explosives experts, such that many field medics are also demolitionists. A properly statted and spec'ed field medic can easily be put at the controls of something with a whole heaping bunch of missiles and easily hold their own while being no less effective at healing injured characters.
• Cyberpunk 2020 has Trauma Team, which is essentially the same as DocWagon below. Their regular ambulance crew includes two "security personnel" whose task is to pacify the pickup zone if necessary. Preferably using the machine gun mounted on the armored ambulance.
• d20 Modern has several class combinations to be a combat medic.
  • Dedicated Hero + Acolyte/field medic. The acolyte can wield divine spells, including healing, the Field Medic can revive a dead party member in the round following his/her death.
  • Strong hero + starting occupation with treat injury as a class skill + Surgery feat. Not as good as a dedicated medic, but still able to heal as well as injure.
  • Fast hero + starting occupation with Treat Injury as a class skill + Surgery feat. For all the gunslinger out there.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The entire Cleric class is dedicated to this in the first and second editions. Instead of squishies, Clerics are the second-best tanks in the game (near the monks and just behind the warrior classes) as well as gaining healing spells very early on and having decent mana. Their main drawback is that they can't use bladed weapons. (This is actually a fair mechanic, considering about 75% of the weapons in the game are bladed. This includes all the good ranged weapons.)
  • In 3rd Edition, efforts to make the Cleric "more fun" to play brought it closer to Magic Knight than Combat Medic: in addition to remaining the best healer class, the cleric's offensive capacities went up. Having the ability to turn their prepared spells into healing spells also let them devote more slots to their awesome combat buffs. An abusive player can throw the team balance out of whack simply by exploiting all the class's best options.
  • In 3.5e, they introduced a dedicated Healer class. It turned out to be a less versatile Cleric in most circumstances.
  • In 4th edition, there are several classes that fit the Combat Medic trope — the Cleric, Bard, Druid (in the Essentials version), Warlord, and Ardent — each with different strengths so that, for example, an Ardent and a Warlord in the same party complement each other rather than infringing on each others' roles. Most of their healing spells are tied to attacks, or minor actions, which let them support their allies while fighting at the same time.
  • And in 5th Edition, this trend continues. Druids, Bards and Paladins are all exceptional healers as well as scrappers, and even Rangers can become quite capable healers if built correctly. Most surprisingly, the new Warlock class can also use healing magic if they take the Celestial Patronage, spells like Cure Wounds and Restoration (Lesser and Greater) become available as bonus spells. Naturally Clerics are still the poster child for this, and Life domain Clerics exemplify this best of all: all their healing spells are more effective than other Clerics, but along with those of the War, Tempest and Forge domains, Life Clerics are also proficient with heavy armour. Alternatively, Grave domain Clerics focus on magic for restoring life at the brink of death; they make sure allies about to go to their grave don't go in there just yet, and they also make sure that the horrible things that do belong in the grave, stay down in the grave.
  • Way of Mercy Monks can replace a unarmed attack with a hit point restoring effect and at later levels remove various conditions, including disease. That's right, they can 'punch' people better.
• Lancer has the Lancaster, which was designed to be large and fast so it could reach struggling allies in a pinch and take a few hits itself. Players quickly realized this combination of traits made it quite good at ramming. It also carries welding torches and nanomachine swarms, ostensibly for repairs, that can be turned on unlucky enemies.
• All characters in Legend System can fight to some degree, so anybody with healing abilities is automatically this. The Sage and Shaman classes are more explicitly this trope: the Sage can heal in a radius and give allies extra turns in-between blowing away enemies with waves of Black Magic, while the Shaman can cast incantations that can either heal or harm, and gets a spell list with plenty of options for both supporting and blasting. Thanks to the game's multiclassing system, any character who chooses the aforementioned class tracks also becomes a Combat Medic.
• A function of how magic works in Mage: The Awakening. A mage who knows enough about the Life Arcanum to heal someone else also knows how to buff up their own physical stats or turn plants into bees to set them on their enemies. At higher levels of Life magic, one can shapeshift others, degrade their physical stats, inflict diseases, and cause someone's body to tear itself apart.
• Magic: The Gathering has a few. Battlefield Medic, most Cleric creatures, and now Frontline Medic. Most decks with life gain effects apply this to the player, unless built solely to support a team.
  • Ironically, the actual "Combat Medic" card, dating back to the Fallen Empires expansion set, isn't one of these. It has 0 power (meaning it can't deal damage in combat without being boosted first) and no other offensive abilities either; it's solely useful for its damage-prevention ability and perhaps on occasion as a blocker.
• Thanks to the functionality of the point-buy system in Mutants & Masterminds, a character who selects Healing as a power is in no way barred from also buying more combat-oriented abilities — and are in fact encouraged to do so, since the game's Power Level system heavily supports all characters having some baseline level of fighting ability. While it is both possible and easy to build a superhero with no combat ability save for healing, you'd just be deliberately handicapping yourself.
• Pathfinder First Edition, a game which essentially took over the 3.X version of Dungeons & Dragons, has more Combat Medics. The Paladin can play this role, as they now have mass-healing abilities and have been heavily upgraded from their 3.5 Incarnation. The Cleric, who got a few nerfs to avoid Codzilla, still fits this trope, as can many Oracle builds. The Witch skirts The Red Mage and Combat Medic, as they have healing but they also are far from a Jack character at magic. A properly made Alchemist and even Bard can also fall into this role.
  • The Advanced Class Guide added the Warpriest class, which blends the martial prowess of a Fighter with the divine magic of a Cleric, though in practice it seems more built to bridge the gap between the martial-focused Paladin and the magic-focused Cleric. They get the ability to enhance their weapons and armor, a special healing ability separate from their magic, and a selection of "blessings" that can be used to support allies, increase their damage, or damage and hinder their opponents.
• Pathfinder Second Edition has the Cleric, who now can train as a war priest to be a Magic Knight with White Magic or can be more caster-friendly. The Sorcerer, Alchemist, Witch, Oracle, Investigator, and Druid can do it with magic or alchemy. Good-aligned Champions can also use modest healing magic and anyone can multiclass more easily to get healing magic. Skills have been upgraded to make them capable of restoring enough HP to make them usable. In short, anyone can be the Combat Medic with the Medicine skill and the Battlefield Medicine feat, which anyone can take at first level.
• While Planet Mercenary allows any player to gain any skill, the Command Package of Doctor gives initial bonuses to Medicine, Xenobiology, Dodge, and any one Combat skill.
• New German Republic medical officers in Rifts are every bit as well-armed and armored as any other soldier, and field ambulances are just as armed as any APC. This is because the Gargoyles don't give a damn about Geneva or its conventions.
• Shadowrun's DocWagon High Threat Response Teams are Combat Medics For Hire. In many cities they or their competitors are the only ambulances in operation. Notably, DocWagon does not care whether or not the patient has a SIN — the SINless just have to pay for at least the basic contract (5000 Nuyen per year) in advance.
• The Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG: Something of a necessity; the fact that the most reliable way to generate Soul for spellcasting is to attack enemies with a melee weapon means that even a bug on the Path of the Bloom (which is otherwise a White Mage with no abilities capable of harming enemies) is going to have to wade into combat sooner or later.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Astartes Apothecaries are just as combat effective as their battle-brothers while having the ability to keep their comrades in the fight, unless they are mortally wounded. Then they just euthanize them and rip out the organ responsible for growing new genetic material for the chapter. Depending on the edition of the game, the rules for Apothecaries allow them to make their fellows tougher, heal wounds or even bring them back from the brink of death.
  • Space Wolves don't have apothecaries (at least not until they got the primaris version). Treatment of the wounded often fell to the Wolf Priests (their chaplain analogues) who often carry around a horn of ointments and holistic cures. This somehow works just as well as the cocktail of drugs other Apothecaries carry.
  • Astra Militarum examples:
    • The field medics who accompany Astra Militarum Command Squads are typically Veteran Guardsmen with a degree of medical skill equipped with a medi-pack that, depending on the tech-level of the regiment's homeworld, could be anything from a roll of bandages to a sophisticated auto-diagnostic and treatment kit. In-game these medics have the same combat abilities as every other Veteran in the squad and, depending on the edition, make it more difficult to wound members of the squad and/or heal wounded characters.
    • The Death Korps Quartermaster combines the role of medic with the technical skill required to recover damaged equipment and the spiritual training to administer comfort to the dying. The Quartermaster is also an officer who accompanies his regiment to the front lines and has the combat skills required to survive the hell of trench warfare. In the 8th Edition of the rules, the Quartermaster Revenant has characteristics superior to a Death Watch Veteran and is equipped with a medi-kit that he can use to heal nearby allies.
  • Orks have Mad Doks. While they do carry supplies for treating wounded Orks their reputation is such that nearby Orks are more likely to decide that their injuries aren't that bad than risk letting the Dok treat them.
  • Death Guard have Plague Surgeons, one of the only Chaos Legions to have retained their Apothecaries post-fall. They make the already tough-as-balls Death Guard even harder to drop. Because of their age and diseased hulk, they are even more formidable than their loyalist counterparts.
  • The Genestealer Cult Biophagus is implied to be a doctor in the lore (he was handing out "vaccinations" to a local imperial guard regiment that is also experiencing a completely unrelated high desertion rate.) In-game however he acts more as a buffer, giving stim-boosts to Aberrants and other cult troops. However, while he is squishy, he is still part genestealer, with all the combat prowess that entails.
  • In 4th edition, a cheap Necron Lord with the Resurrection Orb was considered essential for Necron Warriors or Immortals gunlines; not only did he keep the necrons alive via the Orb, but he also provided essential melee prowess if any of the units were charged by dedicated melee specialists. Destroyer Lords likewise often took one as well to keep up with Destroyers. This was largely phased out in later editions where the Orb became less and less effective in reviving troops and Necrons in general became harder and harder to kill.
• Medic specialists in the 2018 version of Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team are just as capable as their fellows in battle but are also able to boost the resilience of members of the kill team and, with the right skills, heal their comrade's injuries.

Non-game examples:

Anime & Manga

• The guidebook for Attack on Titan states there is a division of the Survey Corps that are combat medics. While not explicitly featured thus far, it is safe to assume members are skilled soldiers — they have to be, to have survived for any length of time in the branch with the lowest survival rates. Hange, Petra, and Krista have all been shown administering emergency treatment to comrades on occasion and are all badasses in their own right.
• Bleach:
  • Captain Unohana Retsu is head of the 4th squad, which is an entire unit of combat medics. She's both famous for being the perfect Yamato Nadeshiko and scary enough to frighten even the Blood Knight 11th division. She also has an Informed Ability as a Master Swordsman. It's eventually revealed that she was the founder and first Kenpachi of the 11th division and the most diabolical criminal in Soul Society history. Now The Atoner, she's only become this trope since giving up being an Ax-Crazy Martial Medic.
  • Orihime Inoue starts as The Medic with some Barrier Warrior abilities, but by the Lost Agent arc she has fully evolved into this.
  • Uryuu Ishida may be a badass mystic archer who has defeated a shinigami captain by one-shotting both the captain and his bankai at the same time, but he's as weak as a kitten compared to his father, Ryuuken Ishida. Ryuuken's not only a fully qualified surgeon and the director of Karakura General Hospital, but he's a quincy whose exceptional fighting strength is surpassed only by his stubborn refusal to use that power.
  • Giselle Gewelle can heal wounds and regrow lost limbs... by decomposing corpses into new flesh and then using it in her "patients". Her colleagues fear her abilities as much as they find them useful, as it's entirely her whim as to whether she heals someone or turns them into a zombie slave. The technique for both is the same.
• Akiko Yosano from Bungo Stray Dogs. Her ability 'Thou Shalt Not Die' allows her to heal wounds, but only if they're half-killed before then or their wounds are fatally-serious. If her patient is only non-lethally injured, she'll have to hurt them some more first.
• Cynthia from Claymore ends up becoming this. She was already a capable fighter, powerful enough to hold the 14th rank among the active Claymores. After surviving the Northern Campaign, she spent the seven-year Time Skip developing a technique that allows her to heal an injured comrade by manipulating their Yoki aura. All Claymores are capable of regeneration, but her abilities allow her to reattach or even regrow severed limbs in the midst of a heated battle.
• Seiko Kimura from Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. As the Ultimate Pharmacist, she's capable of creating medicine that can cure wounds and neutralize poisons, as well as give herself Super-Strength.
• Noi of Dorohedoro. The 'Medic' part comes from her magic, able to heal everything from a ripped off face, dismemberment and so on. The 'Combat' part is that she's an over 6 foot tall wall of muscle that can quite literally chop people in two with her bare hands.
• Fairy Tail gives us Wendy Marvell, the Sky Dragon Slayer, who starts out as a master of healing magic but not much anything else since she's too timid to stand up for herself in the heat of battle. As the series progresses, however, she learns to start putting her "dragon slaying" abilities to use by breathing and conjuring tornadoes. Fast-forward 100 or so chapters, and she actively supports her friends in battle by enhancing their speed, strength, and defense while still managing to hold her own, and even plays a crucial role in taking out at least two Arc Villains. 50 chapters after that, she's a fully polished fighter who can fight one-on-one.And 90 chapters after THAT ,she reaches her magic's ultimate form,by eating the energy a Doomsday Device radiated. Also, she's twelve years old.
  • Also, Chelia Blendy, Wendy's God Slayer counterpart. Correction: ex-counterpart.
• Dr. Techs Farzenberg of After War Gundam X isn't actually an example of this trope (he's a Non-Action Guy that only will resort to violence to defend himself if absolutely necessary as a doctor should be), but nonetheless an image of him cocking a pistol with the subtitle "I'm a healer, but..."◊ became a template that was popularly applied to Combat Medics everywhere.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Josuke Higashikata, from Diamond is Unbreakable. His Stand, Crazy Diamond, is almost on par with Jotaro's Star Platinum when it comes to melee combat. He's also one of the rare instances where the healing power itself doubles as an offensive measure because it works by rewinding time. For example: he restores a missile fired at him and turns it on the enemy who fired it. Too bad Josuke can't heal himself with his Stand.
    • Early in the manga, his mother has unwittingly consumed Aqua Necklace, an intrusive liquid Stand that can control people's bodies. How does he deal with it? He punches through her back, pushes Aqua Necklace out through the hole in her gut, and smashes a bottle in front of her, then restores the bottle around Aqua Necklace and restores his mother's body and clothes as he pulls out his arm. The whole thing is over before she knows anything happened, and she doesn't even feel pain — at most, she has a vague suspicion that something happened.
  • Golden Wind has Giorno Giovanna and his Stand, Gold Experience. Unlike Josuke, Giorno not only has the ability to replace severed limbs; he can use his Stand on himself. On the other hand, it does nothing for pain and while it also works wonders in combat, its durability leaves much to be desired.
  • Stone Ocean has Foo Fighters, a sapient colony of sea plankton. She can heal deadly wounds by filling them with her plankton and sewing them on a microscopical level, making her invaluable as The Medic. However, she can also fire pieces of said plankton like bullets, which, coupled with her ability to withstand massive amounts of damage, makes her just as useful as a fighter.
  • Steel Ball Run has Hot Pants and her Stand, Cream Starter, which is basically a spray can that sprays flesh. The flesh can be used to blind enemies when sprayed on the eyes, or suffocate them to death when sprayed on both the nose and mouth. The flesh also heals cuts and wounds, which is pretty handy for Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli to patch up after a fight.
• Gareki from Karneval is in training to become one of these.
• Shamal of Lyrical Nanoha is a straight medic, but she joins in the battle when needed. Such as the time when she she shoved her arm through Nanoha to save the Wolkenritter. And the Pensieve Flashback of the Ancient Belkan era in the second Sound Stage of A's which showed her killing a knight who was calling reinforcements. And the time when she captured Otto, the Numbers Cyborg in charge of field operations.
  • Before Shamal, there is Yuuno. In addition to his healing ability, he has Stone Wall defensive ability makes him apparently impossible to hurt. He's also good with binding spells, and magical chains that can cut things apart when pulled hard enough. Finally, he has a "forced teleportation" spell which lets him relocate enemies to more convenient locations — such as, in space, directly in front a battleship's charging main cannon. When the series' writers actually let Yuuno participate in a battle, he's always a major player.
• Monster's Dr. Tenma is usually a nice guy. But don't screw with him, or he'll stab you in the carotid artery. He's considered a genius brain surgeon who happens to have advanced military/firearms training.
• Tsunade from Naruto fits to a T, as a character adept at both healing and kicking ass. Not only her, but any named characer who is a medic-nin: Tsunade's apprentices Sakura (who along with Tsunade has Super-Strength thanks to her medical training) and Shizune, Yashamaru, Chiyo, Kabuto, Ino...
• One Piece
  • At first glance, it's easy to mistake Tony Tony Chopper for the Team Pet (even in-universe). However, he's a highly proficient doctor who can be quite the Badass Adorable when pushed. In the fight with the zombie Oars, Chopper consistently used his medical knowledge to tip the fight in the Straw Hats' favor.
  • Also Trafalgar Law, whose Devil Fruit, appropiately named Ope-Ope Fruit (from "operation"), allows him to cut people up and reassemble them in any way he likes. He's the doctor and captain of the Heart Pirates and his epithet is "The Surgeon of Death". Despite how deadly he is, Law is proven to be pretty damn good at the medic part of combat medic, though he hasn't been shown to use his medical expertise on the battlefield yet (unless you count that one time he guessed where Kaido's heart was while in his dragon form, before he fried it).
• in Pokémon: The Series, Nurse Joy's have their own Pokémon and will defend their facilities if attacked, and have been shown to be no slouches when doing it. Some have even been shown to be able to Mega Evolve their Pokémon, and one special division apparently have a lot of legendary Pokémon at their disposal.
• From Pokémon Adventures, Yellow, who is gifted with Healing Hands, spends her arc steadily improving her battling skills up to the point she has to go up against Lance front and center.
• Yaone from Saiyuki. Hakkai also functions as this, though his healing powers are draining and he can't use them if he's injured.
• Faust VIII from Shaman King, who slaved over his medical studies to find a cure for his gravely sick wife Eliza, and then dedicated himself to necromancy to find a way to stay with his deceased wife Eliza (who is now his Guardian Ghost). He's an important team player for Yoh and co. in the Shaman Fight because of his medical expertise; and moreso after learning from the Chō-Senjiryakketsu to revive even the dead.
• Princess Amelia of Slayers serves as this to her group of friends; she wields powerful White Magic, but is also skilled with Shamanistic Magic and utilizes the latter with martial arts attacks. Sylphiel is better at White Magic than Amelia is, but save for a devastating Black Magic spell that she practiced religiously to impress the man she has a crush on, she is lousy with attack spells.
• Soul Eater:
  • Kim Diehl is both a tanuki witch with healing abilities and very handy with her flamethrower/lantern Weapon, Jackie (in fact, she was introduced as a meister before the reveal she was a witch). Though we've seen slightly more of the latter talent, healing herself from a nasty stab wound is an indication of how good a Medic she is.
  • Stein satisfies his endless curiosity by being a doctor (of a kind) and a crazy awesome meister who has a thing for bladed weapons. Apparently, this is because both occupations give him the opportunity to cut things up.
• Steam Detectives: Ling Ling is a nurse, and she does happen to get into the action of the series, helping her partner solve crimes and dealing with criminals.
• In Sword Art Online, Asuna's ALO build, playing as an Undine Healer, but also specializing for rapier sword skills, complementing her experience from SAO. There's a reason she's nicknamed "Berserk Healer."
• The twins Jin and Mikoto from Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kidou Kyuukyuu Keisatsu. The two strive to be doctors like their parents, and pilot an ambulance-themed mech. Although the twins actually get little chance to utilize their medical skills onscreen thanks to the show focusing more on the action, their robots play that role, having more support abilities such as a gun which can release cement to repair collapsing building.
• The medic corps from The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic are this due to their leader's absolutely hellish training. Every member has to be strong enough to fend off any attackers and then be able to heal their comrades on the battlefield or safely bring them back and not die. As a result most combat medics, including the main character, Usato, are far stronger than the rest of their country's soldiers.
• YuYu Hakusho's Kurama is a lethal fighter with a genius-level intellect — and a knowledge of both the killing and healing abilities of plant life.
  • Similarly, the demon Shigure is both a badass combatant with his Rings of Death and an extremely efficient surgeon who actually implanted the Jaganishi in Hiei's forehead.

Comic Books

• 'Doc' Watson from Combat Kelly And His Dozen was the squad's medical officer who would charge into combat alongside the others wielding a machine gun and grenades.
• Dr Charles McNider, aka Dr Mid-Nite, in DC Comics, and his successors Dr Beth Chapel, aka Dr Midnight, and Dr Pieter Cross, aka Dr Mid-Nite II.
• Mender from ElfQuest has Healing Hands but is also prone to battle-fury, such that he might tear into a group of enemies only to heal them once the battle is over. He actually gets a kick out of his contradicting natures.
• The G.I. Joe team often fields a medic, the two most notable being Carl "Doc" Greer and Edwin "Lifeline" Steen.
• Soranik Natu of the Green Lantern Corps. Her ring came to her in the middle of a difficult operation, and she only accepted so she could use it to save her patient (she comes from the same planet as Sinestro, so Lanterns don't exactly have a great reputation there).
• Healer Randolph of Tomahawk's Rangers in Tomahawk.
• Bill Mauldin's classic WWII comic Up Front depicted medics at the front alongside the dog soldiers. In one panel a dishevelled medic is told he didn't earn combat pay because he wasn't "in combat."
• Valkyrie, the title recently taken up by Dr Jane Foster, assembled a team of medical superheroes to aid her: Doctor Strange, Night Nurse, Cardiac, Excalibur (Dr Faiza Hussain) and Manikin (Dr Whitman Knapp). They call themselves the Mighty Medics, unofficially.
• Nightcrawler in the X-Men had some medical training and sometimes served as the team's medic, especially during the Chris Claremont run.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Mad Doctor Pharma meets his end when his former subordinate First Aid blows his head off with a minigun. Ratchet is also shown being quite willing to fight, but First Aid is the one with the most...proactive approach to medicine.

Fan Works

• Bait and Switch: During an away mission in chapter seven, the USS Bajor's science officer Birail Riyannis serves this role, mixing it up in firefights and providing first aid to an injured civilian and two members of the away team.
• Blood and Honor: In addition to being a sharpshooter and tactician, Quinn has medical training. He performs first aid in the field several times and can also give follow-up treatment in a medbay.
• In The Dark Lords of Nerima, Beneda notes that this is the key difference between Dr. Tofu and the Dark Kingdom's healers. The former was not only a fully capable healer, but could hold his own in a fight if need be, while the latter consisted of those youma that were too weak to take part in combat.
• Watson is most definitely this in Mortality. He used his medical skills on a captured criminal when Holmes was captured and tortured with an inch of his life and most likely MURDERED Smith and the captured criminal with his medical skills.
  • Let's just say messing with his friend is a suicidal mistake since it gets this gentle soul pissed and to the point of wanting to kill you.
• In Embers (Vathara) both Katara and Zuko use their bending abilities to heal and fight. Toph subverts this by having a proper training, but preferring to only smash people around. Most healers were taught how to fight in the old days, until Koh decided that getting rid of them would make it easier for him to destroy all humans. It’s hinted that Avatar Kuruk actively defined this trope (splitting healers and warriors) to either save last healers or to avoid creating another insane Northern Tribeswoman like Avatar Kesuk.
• Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Fluttershy graduates to this as she grows stronger. Originally, the most she could do was use a Compelling Voice and injecting her reiatsu into others to weaken or dominate her enemies while also using the same principles to power up herself and her allies, but as she improves she gains the ability to use that same power to heal others and herself while developing her hand-to-hand skills.
• In Doctor Who fanfic Gemini, Skeerse, the reptilian nurse held captive by the super-soldier facility, eagerly treats Nathan’s injuries when the Morningstar crew commandeer the sick-bay. He then takes up arms when June Harper convinces him to join the escape plan, and reveals that before he came to work at the super-soldier facility, his home-world had been caught in the middle of the Dalek Civil War and he had fought against the Imperials and the Renegades alike.
• A Growing Affection adds to the list of medically trained ninajs, but also has a number of other ninjas (including Naruto and Hinata) being taught a few simple medical jutsu so they can help out in an emergency. This comes in handy in a few chapters.
• In Legacy (Sekiro/Kimetsu no Yaiba), Tamayo is a master of Ashina-style swordsmanship, clashing evenly with the likes of Wolf (albeit after hundreds of years of isolation have atrophied his skills). Her medicinal techniques are also second-to-none, having learned from her mother to create an Elixir of Life for Wolf to take.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fic The Long Walk, after her Heel–Face Turn it turns out the OC Breech Loader turns out to be something of a medic, knowing all about healing injuries sustained in street battles, and also has a wide knowledge of dealing with drug-related problems. It also turns out that she has absolutely no qualms about hurting people, and can even defeat Raphael in one-on-one combat.
• Alazar Aboudi was a Special Forces combat medic in Marque and Reprisal.
• In The Night Unfurls, Lily is a cleric in the healer tents, as well as an apprentice hunter in the battlefield.
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Riley Finn is a highly competent soldier trained as a medic, and his wife is a Peace Corp doctor who always carries a gun.
• Son of the Sannin: In addtion to canon healers like Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura, several other characters like Hinata and Shino are trained in medical ninjutsu thanks to it being taught as an elective in the academy following the Uchiha Insurrection.
• Vow of Nudity: Both protagonists, despite being a monk and a warlock, have healing options far better than their class normally gets thanks to their subclasses. Haara specced into Tranquility (letting her substitute punches for uses of Healing Hands), and Spectra formed a pact with a Celestial giving her the ability to heal herself and others with beacons of restorative light.
• Jane Crocker in the Homestuck fanfic Warbound Widow. Because of her Life abilities she's incredibly tough and hard to kill, able to heal shattered bones with ease. Even when faced with loosing a limb she comforts herself with the fact she'd be able to grow it back. Eventually.
• In With This Ring, OL's secondary role to the team is a healer, he uses his abilities to immediately heal the team on site.
  • OL is also trying to get the League to get a dedicated Superpowered Healer for their team, as it would make life so much easier. He convinces Batman to get Accomplished Perfect Physician on the team.

Film — Animated

• Baymax from Big Hero 6 is initially a healthcare companion robot, but is given fighting ability after Hiro's upgrades.

Film — Live-Action

• In Master and Commander, the HMS Surprise's chief medical officer Steven Maturin takes part in the final battle, despite still recovering from a gunshot wound earlier in the movie.
• The titular machines from the Terminator series have detailed files on human anatomy to make them more efficient killers. Of course when programmed to fight on the humans side, this also makes them very good at treating wounds.

LARP

• Odyssey LARP has the Philosopher class, which does healing and magical rituals. Carthaginian philosophers get melee weapon use as their cultural skill. More secrets of the universe? no thanks, I'll have a pair of swords!

Literature

• James Nichols, M.D., from the 1632 series is a veteran Marine, the product of Chicago's roughest ghetto and street gangs, expert sniper — and, after the Ring of Fire, legitimately the best doctor in the entire world. Also, he's shacking up with a Boston Brahmin flaming radical liberal schoolteacher with a history of arrest for Civil Rights protests who knows at least three different recipes for homemade napalm offhand.
• Dr. Maturin in the Aubrey-Maturin series, in addition to being a learned physician, is also an expert swordsman and marksman.
• Croaker from The Black Company. He's also the titular mercenary company's historian and eventually its commander.
• In the Black Magician series of novels, Healing magic can be used to stop a man's heart. All members of the Magician's Guild have at least some training in Healing magic and know how to block this, but when you are fighting magicians from an enemy nation which never had a Healing tradition...
• Memmon and Khirion of Brothers of the Snake are both Space Marine Apothecaries. Note that "Space Marine" part comes before "Apothecary" — they're more akin to warriors with additional medical training than medics with additional military training.
• Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia.
• Dr. Awesome from "Clockpunk and the Vitalizer", though he doesn't get the chance to show off the "combat" side.
• In Corner of a Round Planet (the sequel to Pocket in the Sea,) Dog Company's medic, Lillenthal, is definitely this though he does focus on his job as the medic first and foremost.
• Countdown: M Day's medics are trained to shoot and heal; the initial cadre was several Green Beret medics.
• Alastair Kornbock from Doc Sidhe is a world-class surgeon who has no problems being on the frontline of Doc's fight against evil. As he explains, the Fair World's equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath only applies to patients, and the people he fights don't become his patients until after he shoots them.
• Butters from The Dresden Files is turning into one.
  • There's also ''Injun Joe'' Listens-To-Wind, member of the Senior Council and all-round Cool Old Guy (born in the early 1800's), who still goes back to medical school every few decades to keep his knowledge up-to-date.
• Fiene in Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte possesses healing magic, however she is also a brutally (and comically) effective physical fighter far beyond everybody else in the setting. She's been on record of reattaching her own arm and defeating two assassins at the same time.
• Since all unicorns in The Firebringer Trilogy are trained as warriors, healers like Teki also turn out this way.
• Most Healers in the Heralds of Valdemar series don't get combat training, but some do. On that short list, MindHealer Crathach from Exile's Honor not only has Healing Hands that work on a damaged psyche, but is so good with two daggers that he can teach Alberich a few tricks. Crathach ends up assigned to Sendar's bodyguard for the final battle.
• Clarissa MacDougall of the Lensman universe starts as a nurse in the Galactic Patrol. By the third book of the Kim Kinnison story arc she's promoted into the ranks of the Lensmen themselves, justified in-universe because she's the co-penultimate of the Arisian breeding program and more than half-Lensman to start with and also the only one qualified to work with the Matriarchs of Lyrane II. She more than justifies her promotion when she uncovers the return of the Overlords.
  • In the grand finale, she goes back to Lyrane and turns things up several notches. And then several more. By the time it's all over, there's a trail of wreckage and enemy corpses behind her; and it's quite clear that while the other Second-Stage Lensmen all have specialist skills she lacks, she has by far the greatest reserves of sheer mental force. To top it all off, she's one of the tactical controllers at the Battles of Arisia and Ploor, alongside the Galactic Coordinator and the Patrol's two senior Admirals (among others).
• Magnus Chase of Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. As a son of the Vanir, Frey, he's less naturally combat oriented than demigod children of Aesir like Thor or Odin, working better as a medic with his Healing Hands. He still manages to keep up with his friends with his Einherji Super-Strength and his sword, Sumarbrandr, a.k.a Jack.
• Played with in the case of Malcolm from Ranger's Apprentice. While an Action Survivor who hates harming others, he is quite capable of protecting himself with usage of illusions and home-made flashbang grenades.
• Rebecca Chambers from Resident Evil is portrayed in the novels as not only the STARS team medic, but a scientist as well. She's accurately shown to be weak in combat, but that doesn't stop her from saving the world through smarts and cunning or everybody loving her.
• John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes series, as well as fulfilling his namesake trope, can be seen as a combat medic. While Watson is a doctor and sometimes patches Holmes up after injuries on a case, he more often acts as physical backup for Holmes in dangerous situations. He is a competent fighter and owns a gun.
  • Watson survived service with the British Army in Afghanistan. 'Nuff said.
• Clighal from the Star Wars Expanded Universe is both the Jedi Order's chief medic and able to take down an insane Jedi in about five seconds flat.
• The Stormlight Archive: Kaladin was trained as a surgeon by his father before going to join the army and becoming an expert spearman.
• Rosemary Sutcliff was keen on both warfare and medicine: among her various soldiers and doctors are a Roman army surgeon who leads La Résistance (The Silver Branch); a Roman orderly who masquerades as a standard-bearer (A Circlet of Oak Leaves); an infirmarian monk who becomes a cavalryman and battlefield surgeon (Sword at Sunset); and a cattle doctor-turned-Viking-turned-Byzantine physician (Blood Feud).
• Dr. Livesey from Treasure Island easily overpowers and kills a pirate in a swordfight, and is mentioned to be a veteran of Battle of Fontenoy several times.
• In addition to designated squad medics assigned to the Vorkosigan Saga's Dendarii Free Mercenaries, Elli Quinn has sufficient medical training to do a field prep for cryo-freeze of battlefield casualties. (Probably part of her overall bodyguard training.)
• Medicine cats in Warrior Cats are all trained to fight unless they're physically incapable of doing so. And some medicine cats were warriors before becoming medicine cats, which makes them even more skilled in battle. They don't normally need to fight, as they're not supposed to be acceptable targets, but woe betide anyone who breaks that rule.
• Worm: Panacea's Healing Hands are actually complete control of a subject's biological functions- she can just as easily inflict heart attacks, irrevocable cancers, or other biological nasties as she can heal injuries; thankfully her personal moral restraints keep that part of her power from manifesting more often than not. There's also Bonesaw, Amy's Evil Counterpart, a medical tinker so talented she can bring back others from death itself — and is also a sociopathic Serial Killer armed with a number of biological self-modifications and lethal poisons.
• The X-Wing Series has Ton Phanan. He was a licensed doctor before being badly hurt and getting cybernetics. After that he left his profession and became a pilot. In Wraith Squadron because of his medical training he became the squadron's medic. Even outside of the cockpit he wasn't too squishy, being a little of a Dr. Jerk and a Deadly Doctor who was able to cut an attacker's throat with a laser scalpel.
  Sarkin: Why did you give [medicine] up?
  Phanan: Because I didn't care for patching up people I don't care about and do enjoy killing people I hate.

Live-Action TV

• 9-1-1: Edmundo “Eddie” Diaz, before joining Los Angeles’ 118 firehouse, served in the US Army as one during tours in Afghanistan.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Jemma Simmons was initially a Non-Action Guy just accepted into field duty and completely unused to the related hardships, but facing near-death on a consistent basis forced her to step up her game, both physical and emotional, very quickly. While still not an official field agent she's become pretty handy in a scrap and also had the time to pick up some Improbable Aiming Skills along the way.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow Rosenberg during Season 8.
• Leo from Charmed. As a human he was a medic in World War II, and when he died he was transformed into a Whitelighter complete with Healing Hands. Another bump in power saw him as an Elder, and added lightning bolts to his healing powers. And even before that power-up, he has proved himself to be capable of combat, once even taking on a medieval knight in a sword fight and winning.
• Code Black has Col. Ethan Willis, a military trauma surgeon assigned to Angels Memorial to teach front-line battlefield medicine to the ER staff. Roadside Surgery is his stock in trade, and he is noted for having performed many surgical procedures in the back of a moving Humvee — often while under fire. Even Leanne Rorish cedes to his expertise in this area.
• Doctor Who's Rory Williams is a nurse by profession. He's also, when he opens that little door in his mind, the Last Roman Centurion, and has 2,000 years of memories and skills to draw on. Cybermen are scared of him. With reason.
  • The same episode as Rory-v-Cybermen gives us Strax, a Sontaran who had this role forced on him as "penance" for something his "clone-batch" did. He had to leave the army and care for the sick and weak of other species, which is considered a Fate Worse than Death for a Sontaran. He makes the best of it, but his bedside manner is, well...
    Boy: Will I be OK?
    Strax: [cheerfully] Of course you will my boy, you'll be up and around in no time. And perhaps one day, you and I shall meet on the field of battle, and I will destroy you for the glory of the Sontaran Empire!
    Boy: Thanks, nurse.
• Emergency! had one who was training to become a paramedic. Unfortunately, he kept trying to fall back on the combat medicine he'd learned in the army, and kept arguing with Gage and DeSoto over how to treat the patients and wanting to start treatment before the doctor could advise what to do. He really learned a hard lesson when the guys treated a man whom the medic kept insisting was an acid tripper, and then the hospital relayed he was actually a diabetic, and the medic's course of action (there's nothing you can do but transport and let it wear off) would have killed him.
• Firefly's Simon Tam isn't much of a frontline fighter, but his exceptional medical skills allow him to disable opponents using nonlethal attacks, and in one case prevented an unruly Jayne from taking over the ship.
  • "Ariel" also proved he can be quite the Diabolical Mastermind if he needs to be.
  • On the other hand, "War Stories" subverted this when Dr. Tam took up arms to help rescue the Captain. According to Shepherd Book, even after his part in an intense gunbattle, Simon still hasn't taken another person's life.
• The Flash (2014): Caitlin Snow is a trained doctor as well as a bioengineer, and is a seasoned Action Survivor. This trope becomes more prominent for her after becoming a metahuman, even using her medical knowledge while fighting Barry.
• Dr. Owen Hunt in Grey's Anatomy. The first episode that introduced him has him performing a tracheotomy on a guy with a pen. After he leaves the army and becomes a trauma doctor at Seattle Grace, he, at first, has trouble adjusting to working at a civilian hospital and nearly gets into trouble with his improvised medicine (e.g. having a patient's scalp glued to her head instead of calling for a specialist to properly suture it). Oh, and he still has PTSD from his time in Iraq.
• Holby City has Berenice "Bernie" Wolfe, late of the Royal Army Medical Corps and explicitly called "the greatest trauma surgeon [the UK] has to offer". By the end of the series, she had been blown up no less than three separate times and declared dead at least once. Shortly after she joins the Acute Admissions Unit at Holby, a mass casualty has her asking for permission to organise triage and emergency care as she would on the front lines; her resulting "Kandahar style" medicine impresses AAU lead Serena Campbell so much that she offers Bernie the position of co-lead and the opportunity to start up her own trauma unit. And when another doctor starts flirting with her girlfriend — the aforementioned Serena Campbell — Bernie points out acidly that she knows thirteen ways to kill someone with her bare hands.
• In Kamen Rider OOO, Akira Date/Kamen Rider Birth was part of a group of traveling doctors before he became a Rider. He gets to use his medical skills in Episode 24, and one of his dreams is to set up a medical school.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid both subverts and plays it straight. Emu Hojo is a skilled doctor and genius gamer, but has little mundane fighting skills, getting beaten up at every opportunity. ^note  fighting viruses in #4, Zaizen's troops in Heisei Generations, by Takeshi Asakura in Revival of Beast Rider Squad and by Masamune Dan in #38 . Taiga Hanaya, on the other hand, is genius doctor, the most skilled Kamen Rider and experienced fighter.
• Though he doesn't often get to show it, M*A*S*H*'s Colonel Potter very much qualifies. He and an extremely reluctant Hawkeye are the only surgeons on the show who have participated in an on-screen firefight^note An exchange of small arms fire in Hawkeye Get Your Gun; and it's obvious that he knows exactly how to handle himself in a combat situation. This is very much justified, as Potter is a "mustang officer" veteran of three wars — World Wars I, II, and Korea — and spent most of his Army career in the cavalry. Potter has no doubt been in heavy combat many, many times.
• Miami Medical has Matt Proctor, a general surgeon ("hernias and hemorrhoids" as another character puts it) who joins Miami Trauma — because before he was a general surgeon, he did two tours in the Persian Gulf and three years at the Landstuhl military hospital as a front-line combat trauma surgeon. It shows, particularly in crisis situations when everyone else is at a loss for what to do. Eva Zambrano, a surgical fellow who had been in line to take over her trauma team, doesn't even argue when he gets the spot over her because he's so good at his job despite his personality quirks.
• Several episodes of Moonlight show that Mick used to be one during World War II, and that's before he became a vampire. He shows off his skills as a battlefield medic by tying off a cut artery with a necklace.
• Aramis of the BBC's 2014 version of The Musketeers. The eponymous heroes are elite soldiers and amongst them Aramis is usually the one tasked with sewing up their war wounds (Porthos says Aramis "should have been a seamstress"). He also is shown to have some interest in forensics and the group turn to Aramis's expertise to try and save Cardinal Richelieu when he is poisoned.
• Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard of NCIS served in Afghanistan and Bosnia with the U.K.'s Royal Army Medical Corps before joining NCIS;
• Person of Interest: Sameen Shaw originally went to medical school, but was deemed unfit to become a doctor due to her Lack of Empathy towards others. She went on to join the Marines, and later the ISA. She has patched up several others over the course of the show, and has probably patched herself up just as many times.
• Like the character in the source material, Dr. John Watson of Sherlock is a former military doctor, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He comes across as the kind, patient, and caring opposite of Sherlock Holmes, and then, at the end of the first episode, he shoots a guy through the heart to save Sherlock. From the next building.
  John: [while holding Sherlock in a headlock] I was a soldier! I killed people!
  Sherlock: You were a doctor!
  John: I had bad days!
  • And does again while tied to a chair at the time.
• Star Trek:
  • Trekiverse doctors have generally been fast with the Instant Sedation in a pinch, but Dr. Beverly Crusher takes it far past that. She has several times proved herself competent with a phaser -- or her fists — and even once commanded the ship in combat. Where she blew up a Borg ship by triggering a solar flare^note The incident even involved a callback to "Suspicions," another episode in which she gunned down a hostile alien-of-the-week. Also she is the only doctor seen so far who truly enjoys command, and she regularly commands the night shift "just to keep in practice." As if all that wasn't enough, in the third season of Star Trek: Picard, she gets her very own "Fire everything we've got!" moment at the tactical station of the good old Enterprise-D, unleashing holy hell (and phasers, and photon torpedoes) on a Borg cube.
  • Dr. Julian Bashir of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is this at times. He once killed a Jem'Hadar by stabbing him in the neck, not to mention the fact that he'll defend himself (and others) with a phaser when necessary. (At the Siege of AR-558, his skill with a phaser rifle impresses battle-hardened veterans stationed there; he holds his own against the Jem'Hadar, and then as soon as the fighting ends, ignores his own injuries to start patching up the other wounded). He's also genetically augmented with superhuman reflexes and genius intellect which he normally has to hide but gets to put to use working for Starfleet Black Ops.
  • The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager is upgraded in the later seasons to also be an emergency command hologram and proves to be very dangerous when turned against the crew. He's also effectively immortal.
    • He also once disabled two enemy warships with a single torpedo. Anyone who has used a shock rifle in Unreal Tournament can guess how he did that.
  • Admiral Cornwell, the face of Starfleet Command in Star Trek: Discovery, rose to that rank as a Starfleet Medical psychiatrist. In season one of the series, she does less psychoanalyzing and more strategizing against Klingons, attempting diplomacy with Klingons, enduring capture and torture at the hands of Klingons, and assisting in her own rescue by shooting Klingons while paralyzed from the waist down.
  • Dr. Joseph M'Benga and Nurse Christine Chapel in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds were both on the front lines during the Federation-Klingon War, and fought alongside their comrades, with M'Benga even personally developing a Super Serum known as "Protocol 12" to boost the troops' fighting abilities, his own included. He personally slew three Klingon officers in hand-to-hand combat in retribution for the atrocities they had committed during one particularly bloody battle, which included killing civilians and even children. In "The Broken Circle", the two use Protocol 12 to battle their way through a ship full of renegade Klingons. It should be noted, though, that their experiences have left them with some very deep scars, especially M'Benga.
• Supergirl (2015): Because of her medical knowledge (she gave up a career in medicine to join the DEO) and bioengineering background, Alex Danvers is the person who patches up the injuries of Team Supergirl and diagnoses medical problems. She even has administered blood transfusions. However, she is primarily a field agent, and thus gives out more injuries than she heals.
• Owen Harper from Torchwood was not averse to wielding a gun, and then there was that time he kicked the ass of Death.
• The X-Files: Dana Scully (yes, that Agent Scully) is both a doctor with a medical degree and a trained FBI agent, so you'd best believe that she's capable of kicking your ass and then patching up any injuries she might've given you afterwards. She's a much better shot and generally tougher than Mulder, despite the latter being much taller and more physically inclined, on top of being smarter and more centered than he is.

Myths & Religion

• In the Norse tale Sigrdrifumal, a female figure (possibly a Valkyrie) instructs a warrior what runes he must know. These include both victory runes (for battle) and healing runes.

Professional Wrestling

• Ultimate Pro Wrestling university trainee Nurse Cassie was hired by the company before her wrestling training was even completed after she tended to Schwag, who was injured during a Galaxy attack.
• Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D., currently with All Elite Wrestling, is a fully licensed and practicing dentist. She started wrestling training shortly before starting dental school at the University of Pittsburgh, and was a three-year veteran of the indy circuit by the time she earned her D.M.D. in 2018. Her current gimmick heavily draws on her dental background.

Webcomics

• In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Dr. McNinja is a doctor and a ninja. Self-explanatory.
• Honey of Beyond the End is supposed to be a healer, but the second she sees Michael, she's challenging him to fights. End is also a healer, but was originally trained as a fighter, so carries a short sword.
• Hati of Cry 'Havoc' doesn't particularly like the fighting part of being a combat medic, but is still put on the front lines with the rest of the mercenaries. While not as heavily armed or armored as her squad mates she can hold her own in a fire fight.
• As the cleric for the evil adventurers in Darken, Mink isn't exactly a pacifist (she's a cleric of Hextor, after all). More to the point, she's a lightning breathing half-dragon with a massive hammer. She can definitely hold her own in combat. as long as she's not wielding a flail.
• All four of The Dragon Doctors prove to be handy in a fight. Three of them are magical doctors; Sarin specializes in shapeshifting magic, Mori's got a powerful spell-gun, and Kili can call upon spirits to aid her. Goro the surgeon is a literal Combat Medic, formerly a Major in the Army and still a deadly shot with a thrown scalpel.
• Dr. Bowman in Freefall served as one of these for a time, a job made even more difficult than usual by the fact that all his patients were his fellow uplifted chimps, and in order to treat them he first had to club them unconscious.
• Dr. Sun in Girl Genius declares his intention to deconstruct Baron Wulfenbach's giant medical mecha. Wulfenbach appears to take the threat seriously. Then he does it. It involved several explosions.
  Dr. Sun: [to Captain Dupree] All things considered, Captain, you got off rather lightly. Therefore in the future please refrain from damaging any more of my staff... Or else I will personally rip off your arms and feed them to you. Do we have an understanding?
  [Dupree nods worriedly]
  Dr. Sun: Excellent. I do like a patient smart enough to follow her doctor's advice.
• Kirby Card Clash has one in the form of Hanna who not only supports her allies, but also has some combat friendly spells.
• Last Res0rt's Scout Arael declares herself as one of those to avoid getting her ass completely kicked by the players. Despite being armed with what appears to be an electric scythe (which turns into a not-so-electric staff), she doesn't do too much healing in our first appearance of her, but definitely is the one scout who is acting only in self-defense. The "Combat" part of this makes total sense when she takes down a Zombie-fied Scout Kuvaela. Apparently, her oath doesn't apply to undead.
  • Qin Xu is an actual doctor, but doesn't have the same hesitation Arael does. 'Course, the Scouts are actively TRYING to kill him...
• In The Order of the Stick while Durkon mostly acts as support, he also has a fondness for growing giant and smashing people with a huge hammer.
  • Numerous clerics fill this function. The Cleric of Loki fights alongside Belkar, staying in the back, but killing several opponents, and healing him.
• Ell from What's Shakin' is a holy mage that not only uses defensive magics like heals and shields, but can also whip out a wicked attack if necessary.
• Adrestia "The Vengeful One" from Morph E is physically the strongest of the Seedlings and wastes no time showing it off. She awoke as a Thrysus mage, proficient in Life and Spirit magic, and serves as the party's healer.
• Unknown Lands: Mischief is the main group's very impressive magical healer, and is also their second most lethal combatant as a powerful mage with an understanding of blood magic. Kai, the other member of the group with medical knowledge cannot magically patch people up in the middle of battle and isn't much of a fighter either, though he does know how to use his knife to kill if he has to.
• Several characters from the White Dark Life roleplays qualify, but the standout examples are Matt and Ben Mokary. Matt is a mimic who also happens to be an angel, and he specializes in White Mage-type abilities, but with his ability to assume the powers of just about anyone he can imagine, he can kick a lot of ass. Ben is a more mundane example, "merely" being a highly skilled medic and surgeon as far as his healing abilities are concerned, but, well, he outranks everyone in Orbis save for its queen for a damn good reason. Annie Belnades (and her daughter, Anastasia) are honorable mentions; their healing powers only work up close and personal, but they can bring people back from nearly anything short of being reduced to Ludicrous Gibs (therefore falling somewhere in between Matt and Ben in terms of effectiveness), and both are highly skilled and powerful fighters who can easily swat their enemies half a mile away with a single blow.

Web Original

• Kristy was one in the Epilogue of Game 12 for Comic Fury Werewolf. Espeh (sort-of) was one as well.
• Randus duThane, the Artificer played by Brian in the Critical Hit podcast. Some of his spells heal or protect the other players, others do damage, some do both!
• Critical Role:
  • Pike Trickfoot is Vox Machina's cleric, and specializes in magic for healing and protecting the party. That being said, she's also a heavily-armored War Domain cleric, and the team's go-to girl for taking on The Undead. She can definitely hold her own in a fight.
  • Whenever Pike isn't around, Keyleth tends to play substitute healer, most notably when she conducted a restoration ritual to heal Grog's mind after a battle with an Intellect Devourer left him braindead. Healing is not her main forte, though — as a druid, that focus lies in harassing enemies with elemental spells when she isn't just shapeshifting into giant animals and mauling their faces off.
  • The Mighty Nein, season 2's party, has Jester Lavorre, a Trickster cleric who's handy with an axe and is actually the second-strongest party member after Yasha. Jester actually leans so hard on the "Combat" side of this trope that the other party members often joke that she forgets she has healing spells in the first place.
  • The Nein's second cleric and Sixth Ranger, Caduceus Clay, is more of a straightforward healer than Pike or Jester, but he can still summon a swarm of flesh-consuming insects to eat people alive if they piss him off.
  • Bells Hells, season 3's party, has Fresh Cut Grass, an automaton cleric who plays double duty as the party's healer and Warrior Therapist. He can also switch out his hand for a detachable sawblade to gore people with, and has a hidden Sanity Meter that causes them to go berserk and attack anyone nearby if they get too stressed.
  • Like Vox Machina, the Hells have a druid as their secondary healer. Fearne only heals people when things are truly dire though, and spends most of her time chucking fire at her enemies.
• In Dead West, The Porcelain Doctor and his squad on the British side, the Boers have von Ranzow and his doctors. They are very much adored in-universe for this, and Niall and von Ranzow both end up as Warrior Saints in their lives, a rare honour. Note that usually the only personnel from the medical corps to fight on the battlefield is Niall, when he is challenged, as he is the only aristocrat in the field lazaretum, and thus he is in the unique position to not to lose his immunity after the duel. Von Ranzow only did it offscreen, but their respective medical crew still choose to do their fare in the middle of a fricking battlefield, under heavy fire. On the end, this is what causes the Porcelain Doctor's death.
• In one Dorkly Bits short White Mages are Jerks, the party’s White Mage poorly attempts to become a combat medic, emphasizing more on combat than actually doing his job and healing the party.
• Fallout Is Dragons has two examples: Firelight, a mostly pacifist unicorn with pyromantic abilities, and Doctor Tibbs, who uses his medical knowledge to heal, make drugs, and break ponies whenever he feels like it.
• QUINNS from The Last Stage by NatOne Productions is a former Army medic now working for The Detachment. Just because he patches the other characters up doesn't mean he's above bringing out the guns when he needs to.
• Noob, which is set in a fantasy MMORPG, has a handful of them.
• In Past Division, the life cleric Drake Hothands is the party's main healer, and also one of the heaviest hitters thanks to his enchanted warhammer.
• Whateley Universe: Gadgeteer Genius Jericho is designing his Rafe Powered Armor (named for Raphael, the archangel of healing) for use by medics, EMTs, and search/rescue units. While the 'standard' version isn't armed, he did give it hardpoints which could mount either lifesaving equipment or weapons, and his own armor is equipped with a teleportation rig that can summon some of the most lethal hardware the more weapon-oriented Devisors and Gadgeteers at the school could come up with — and for a supposedly blind guy, he's a damn good shot.

Western Animation

• Waterbenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender have an impressive range of combat moves using water and ice, but some develop Healing Hands as well. The northern water tribe normally separates these roles by gender, but Katara masters both in the course of the series and passes them on to Korra in the sequel.
• Lifeline of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon is a medic and makes it a rule to not carry any firearms. Doc is another example in the same series.
• Ponto, the Kulipari medic from Kulipari: An Army of Frogs is the largest member of the Kulipari and is capable of using his poison to boost his strength to crazy levels.
• Kix from Star Wars: The Clone Wars is one of the 501st Legion's medical officers, but both being a clone trooper and involved in a war against the Separatist Alliance's battle droid armies, he's prepared to fight against them too if necessary (as well as any wild animals that might try to feed on any of his wounded brothers out in the open).
• Raven from Teen Titans (2003) is shown to be able to heal in addition to her more combat friendly powers. She uses this power exactly twice onscreen.
• Ratchet is portrayed as this in most incarnations of the Transformers franchise. In Transformers: Animated, he is the only person on Optimus Prime's team who'd actually gone through the Great War, and most of his weapons (EMP generator, forcefield manipulators, etc.) are actually medical tools. But that doesn't mean he enjoyed it...
  • This was actually a wonderful extension from the 1980's comic book series, where Ratchet was not only one of the few Autobots to defeat Megatron one on one, he did it twice!
  • On the Decepticon side of things, there's Knock Out, who's "better at breaking 'em than fixing 'em."
  • Hook in the original series is described as a "surgical engineer" in his Tech Specs, and has occasionally been seen acting as a medic for the Decepticons (and even the Autobots in one instance).
• In Transformers: Cybertron, there's Red Alert. Especially after his Mid-Season Upgrade.
• David from The World of David the Gnome is not only a doctor, he also frequently battles trolls, hunters, and the occasional gnome gone rogue. Not bad for a 399 year old.

Real Life

• It's a common urban myth that medical knowledge is not only useful for knowing how to save someone's life, it's also useful for knowing how to end it. In reality, detailed medical knowledge in no way translates into knowing how to fight, and in actual combat, there is no time to do precise things that require detailed knowledge. Modern shooters shoot center of mass and the head, neither of which it takes a medical degree to recognize. Likewise, modern fencing, HEMA, and martial arts practitioners don't sit for detailed classes in anatomy in the hopes of becoming better fighters. Being a doctor does not turn you into a fighter any more than being a fighter lets you practice medicine.
  • Modern combat medics shoot center of mass. So do infantrymen. So do military cooks, truckers, mechanics, pilots, and everyone else. It's what works.
  • The level of detail in anatomy class during medical school and other advanced training is very granular and fine-detailed because it needs to be for the purpose of medicine. You do not need to know what the procerus ^note A small muscle on the bridge of the nose is to get the idea that a bullet between the eyes is going to ruin the unfortunate person on the other end.
  • Against a resisting opponent in a fight, there is no time for the precise movements that would let someone apply specialized knowledge. Someone might, at best, target something like "the temple," but this is hardly detailed anatomical knowledge.
• Truth in Television. In The Vietnam War, the preferred method of getting from Point A to wounded guy at Point B involved grenades. Lots of grenades.
  • Medics were given shotguns, sidearms, or even assault rifles for protection. Resulting situations were described as "preventative medicine".
• United States armed forces:
  • Combat Medic is now a specific Job Type in the U.S. Army.
    • Much like the Navy Corpsman they are referred to as Doc and are often armed for self defense. Like their naval cousins they have a large amount of respect because they go out into the field with the infantry and are known to participate actively in fighting when needed.
    • Sergeant David Bleak, a US Army combat medic who during the Korean war, took down several enemy soldiers with his bare hands in the midst of an enemy ambush. Staff Sergent Bleak's actions were heroic enough to earn the Medal of Honor, the US military's highest honor for valor.
    • To elaborate, he killed one by breaking his neck, killed another by crushing his windpipe, and then two others later by smashing both their heads together so hard that their skulls probably cracked.
  • Patrol medics of the United States Army and Navy (called corpsmen) are both issued rifles. They are essentially riflemen who have passed a more advanced first aid course, serving as a soldier first and medical specialist second.
  • The USAF has Pararescuemen, aka PJ's or "Pedros", elite commando medical teams. Arguably the most elite SOF group the US has, they're a force of elite commandos with massive medical training. The training pipeline takes a full two years to complete, over half of which is pure combat medicine. It's generally referred to as "Superman School", with the highest washout rate of any SOF training, about 80%. The resultant medical commandos are often attached to other SOF units that lack such highly trained specialists.
  • The only branch of the United States military that does not train their own medics is the Marine Corps; instead, they are assigned Navy Hospital Corpsmen, who are referred to as "Doc" and given great respect. This is because, in addition to their Field Medical Training classes, they are required to pass all aspects of the Marine Physical Fitness test. In other words, they have to be able to run 3 miles in less than half an hour, perform at least 50 sit-ups in two minutes, know how to fire and service a rifle, all while learning how to save a Marine's life. Is it any wonder that the rating of Hospital Corpsman is the most decorated in the US Navy?
    • Marine training is even harder on the attached Corpsman than the rest of the Marine recruits. A Corpsman is required to carry a full pack like everybody else as well as their own medical supply kit which isn't exactly light. To make things harder, whenever recruits get a few minutes to rest on a particularly gruesome run or field exercise the Corpsman is expected to check on all of the recruits assigned to him for injuries (especially foot injuries).
• Tends to happen in any situation where one or both sides do not respect the red cross symbol. Notable historical examples include the German and Russian armies in WW2 towards each other, and US medics in the Pacific theater.
• The Land Branch of the Israel Defense Forces takes this trope to its logical conclusion with an ambulance that is also a tank.
  • Also carried over to the civilian world with this ambulance◊ from Magen David Adom (Red Star of David), Israel's answer to the Red Cross.
• The Knights Hospitallers.
• Most armies have a special forces medical division trained to rescue soldiers (in particular, shot-down pilots) behind enemy lines. Think medic + commando.
  • Many Special forces medic can even perform a variety of minor surgeries in the field to save your life and treat a very broad range of injuries and ailments.
• The Laws and Customs of War dictate that in order to hold noncombatant status and be entitled to bear the Red Cross, hospital ships must be totally unarmed, even purely defensive systems like Phalanx CIWS being forbidden. This has presented something of a problem in modern times, as the Red Cross means nothing to a guided missile that misses its intended target and locks onto the first ship it sees. As a result, the Royal Navy, who learned the "indiscriminate missiles" lesson the hard way when the Atlantic Conveyor was sunk during The Falklands War, has bit the bullet and fitted its "Primary Casualty Reception Ship" RFA Argus with a couple of point-defence guns.
• Several countries and their respective branches of service, including for example the United States Army and the Marine Corps, issue the majority of their soldiers with at least a bare minimum of first aid supplies (and training), so that every soldier can apply this trope just in case.
• Benjamin Lewis Salomon, a US Army dentist re-assigned as a front-line surgeon. When his medical tent was getting swarmed with Japanese soldiers, he drove back the attackers and covered his unit's escape with a machine gun. As he gave his life for his brothers in arms, he managed to take 98 of the enemy with him.
• Ekaterina Demina (nee Mikhailova). While being the only Russian nurse awarded with Order of Florence Nightingale and saving more than 300 soldiers during WWII, as a medical officer of the Marine corps she fought on par with her comrades. For example, during the recapture of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, not only she rescued 17 wounded from the battlefield but single-handedly assaulted a fortified German position, taking 14 prisoners and killing 10 enemies in the process.
• Cracked.com The 5 Most Badass Medics In The History of War
• Wong Fei-hung was a doctor by trade, running his own clinic. He's also one of the most famous Real Life martial artists in the world.
• An interesting story from World War II came from a misinterpretation of this trope: Switzerland, who remained neutral during the war, nonetheless detained any planes, Allied or Axis, who crossed their lines seeking refuge. Most of the time, these were Allied bombers who had sustained too much damage in battle to make it back to base, and instead opted to land in Switzerland where they would be treated better than as P.O.W.'s by the Germans. Some Swiss pilots tasked with escorting these bombers to airbases were surprised at how compliant the crews of these B-17s and B-24s were to being approached by unknown fighters, especially when the Swiss Air Force tended to fly Axis aircraft that they had either confiscated and repaired or simply bought from the Germans, such as the Bf-109, with the only identifying marks on them being the Swiss military emblem.^*A white cross on a red background When a Swiss pilot finally managed to ask an American detainee about this oddity, the American pilot responded that, while yes they were a bit leery of being approached by Bf-109's, they wouldn't dare fire upon a plane operated by the Red Cross!^*The Red Cross' emblem being a, well, red cross on a white background.
• John Henry "Doc" Holliday received his degree in dentistry at the age of 21 in the year 1872. He later became a legendary gunslinger and friend of Wyatt Earp.

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