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The Medic
This guy. Shoot him first.

"Mediiic!"
The main character, every war movie, ever

Funny thing about adventure: People tend to get hurt. Especially the heroes. And injuries are terribly inconvenient for questing, resulting in time lost recuperating (or making an out-of-the-way trip to the nearest Trauma Inn) at best, and a Total Party Kill at worst. So, it's terribly, terribly convenient to have someone in the party who can make the hurting stop.

Enter The Medic. In modern settings or futuristic settings, The Medic is often a trained physician or EMT (emergency medical technician), and relies on whatever medical technology is available in that era and on-hand — anything from miraculous herbs, injections and bandages to Nanomachines. In fantasy settings, The Medic is a often a cleric or Mysterious Waif of some kind, using the powers of White Magic to restore people with Healing Hands (or something similarly glowy). May wield the Healing Shiv.

Often caring and concerned, Medics tend to be The Chick (regardless of gender). Alternatively, they're less personable than rational, and are thus a Smart Guy, even if the team already has a Smart Guy. Regardless, team Medics will inevitably become the Team Mom — they simply leave the team if they can't.

Medics are typically Squishy Wizards, possessing little in the way of raw strength or offensive combat ability. If guns are standard, they'll usually have the smallest and weakest possible. In fantasy settings, they don't usually wear any armor, and tend to use staves as often as hammers or maces. They don't always get the flashiest abilities and their skillset tends towards Boring But Practical, although they will occasionally pick up a few offensive spells. Holy Hand Grenade is popular among the rare Medics who fight.

Still, The Medic is prone to be Actual Pacifist and hold to Thou Shalt Not Kill (except, possibly, Mercy Killing), although he may not stick to it when he is literally the only person who can attack — especially not if the Complete Monster is willing to attack him or worse, the wounded. In Real Life, this is required; medical personnel are protected under the rules of war, but forbidden to fight themselves.

If there's only one team member capable of healing, that person is automatically the Medic, even if they have other abilities, even if healing is their least proficient ability. But if multiple teammates can heal, then The Medic is the one who is either the best at it or takes it most seriously. Even if the Medic should have awesome attack magic, or have the fortitude to handle melee combat, his role as healer, supporter, and protector is his top priority.

See the Five Man Band, The Squad and the Command Roster for Ensembles likely to have a team Medic. In particularly large or specialized teams, it is not uncommon for the Medic to do almost nothing except heal The Tank - in which case they are that fighter's "backpack" (this is standard practice for groups in World Of Warcraft). A backpack may also occur when one member has a specialized healing ability and another requires that specialized healing (typically robot/techie, undead/necromancer, or an inverted Revive Kills Zombie situation).

Staff Chick is a specific type that occurs with faithful regularity in videogame [=RPGs=]. Also in videogames, when the enemy has one, Shoot The Medic First. The Combat Medic is a variant which can heal and support while beating down the enemies, and a medic who specializes in both healing and defense is often a Barrier Warrior. The Deadly Doctor has gone rogue and decided to use those same healing abilities to take people apart.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • In Galaxy Angel, Vanilla H was the team healer and youngest member of the all-female fighter-pilot group, but she was one of the smarter members and an Emotionless Girl. She healed people and repaired fighter-craft with Nanomachines. Probably because everyone's older and she's so young, she's not a Team Mom.
    • Galaxy Angel II replaces her with Nano-Nano Pudding, also the youngest of her group (she's actually one, being an Artificial Human made of the aforementioned nanomachines). Unlike Vanilla's fragile ship, Harvester, Nano-Nano could actually fight decently in First Aider, although you'd still want to keep her in healing mode.
  • In Record Of Lodoss War, Etoh the cleric was the team healer, but Deedlit the elf was The Chick. Deedlit had healing magic herself, too, but she wasn't specialized in The Medic role like Etoh.
  • Yuuno Scrya and Shamal of the Wolkenritter, from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Shamal is the better healer, but Yuuno is better at providing support and protection in combat... and he doesn't have a high-quality Device enhancing his magical abilities, either. Both are kind of The Chick , but Yuuno is never part of a team long enough to become a Team Mom. After her Heel Face Turn, Shamal would become a literal medic, complete with her own office and doctor coat.
  • The male doctor in Vandread, Duero Macfile. A Badass Bookworm in personality alone, but he was also an A-Class Citizen and a fully qualified mecha pilot assigned to an elite military vessel. He probably could make a fine showing in combat if he weren't more intestered in his role as the ship's only medical doctor.
  • Orihime Inoue in Bleach may have the power to make people's heads explode, but it often fails for the simple fact that she doesn't want to make heads explode and her targets are too strong for half-hearted attacks. On the other hand, she also has the power to protect and heal; since she prefers very much to do that, her considerable powers operate at full strength in that department. She is also the strongest healer in the series, as her healing attacks don't actually heal wounds, they make it so they never happened in the first place.
    • The Fourth Court Guard squad, lead by Captain Retsu Unohana and lieutenant Isane Kotetsu, is the healing squad. They tend to get picked on by other Court Guard squads because they heal instead of fighting. However, one menacing look from the otherwise polite and gentle Unohana is enough to stop them.
      • 7th Seat Hanataro Yamada healing specialization goes so far, that his Zanpakuto is actually a Healing Shiv. Unfortunately, he's also the Butt Monkey, which means he frequently misplaces his sword, when it's actually pretty powerful (heal enough wounds with it, and it can return the damage healed in a massive attack).
  • Elf dust in Berserk can heal wounds. This is sometimes an unfortunate fact for Puck, the elf that travels with Guts — when he needs healing, Guts has no problem with grabbing Puck and shaking him over whatever wounds need to be healed.
  • Dende and Mr. Popo in Dragonball Z.
  • Asa Shigure, Kareha, and Nerine from Shuffle!. In a twist, Asa rejects her "role" as healer due to her reluctance to use any kind of magic after all the crap her Hot Shounen Mom went through in the past, which becomes a plot point as the magic piles up in her body and gets her gravely sick...
  • All the medical ninja from Naruto, most notably Tsunade the Fifth Hokage, Kabuto Yakushi and Sakura Haruno. Though, it's more like superpower assisted first-aid and surgery than healing. It's worth noting that the knowledge of anatomy and chakra control necessary for healing makes them dangerous combatants, to say the least.
    • Yeah. Right. But they never bother to use their dangerous combat skills to do anything remotely useful!
  • Josuke of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure can easily do this with his Stand power, which is to ability to restore anything that is broken. But he cannot do it to himself.
    • Giorno CAN heal himself, but has to take something and turn that into new flesh for whatever he is trying to heal; such as using the bullets you were shot with to fix your organs. (This leads to an... odd moment later on in the story.)
  • In Yu Yu Hakusho, Botan, Genkai and Yukina all have healing powers, but Yukina is the only one to use it more than once. However, the actual team medic is Kurama, the plant master.
  • In The Prince Of Tennis, Oishi, Ryuzaki-sensei and Inui are sometimes seen bandaging up their injured teammates.
  • Konoe Konoka in Mahou Sensei Negima increasingly fills this role as she becomes more experienced with healing magic. After a while, team members just don't bother restraining themselves during training, since all their injuries can be healed by her anyway. Unfortunately, this also makes her the team's biggest Achilles Heel, as in a battle she is always targeted first. In one Mood Whiplash chapter, she manages to completely heal the protagonist after he took a stone spear to the chest, pulled it out to sucker-punch the villain who delivered it, collapsed, and bled on the floor for a minute, all until she got to him.
  • Technically not anime, but related: While most magi in the Nasuverse are trained in first aid, Irisviel von Einzbern in Fate/Zero is the designated Medic for Saber, her partner and her husband's Servant. Due to this she also suffers from a variation of The Worf Effect, where the first sign of trouble came when Saber took a hit and Irisviel couldn't heal it.
  • Princess Millerna Sarah Aston, the Rebellious Princess from Vision Of Escaflowne. Also kind of a subversion, being a traditional medic instead of a Staff Chick... in a fantasy environment.
  • Princess Erika from Daimos
  • Fuu from Magic Knight Rayearth; one of her wind spells is a healing technique which she can apply to herself and her teammates.
  • At first glance, it's easy to mistake Tony Tony Chopper of One Piece as the Team Pet. Regardless of this, he's also one of the One Piece world's most talented doctors. Among other feats, he successfully healed two crew members who had been frozen solid, despite having never seen such a thing and having no idea what to do at first. He also adapted his medical knowledge to combat. He twice gave advice that was instrumental in defeating the giant, Living Shadow-powered zombie, Odz.
  • In "Psyren," three characters have been shown to use healing, all ironically being male. Oboro Mochizuki is technically the team healer, and contrasts with the normal personality associated with the job. He switches between being extremely childish and mature, and it has been hinted at him becoming somewhat sinister. In fact, he ended up using his healing abilities to convert a Tavoo into a tumorous state, saying that he was trying to see if he could fix it to save the numerous composite bodies it was made up of, when he really only wanted to test his abilities. Also, his powers work best through hugging.
  • Megumi Takani, Dr. Genzai (in the anime) and the Mutou siblings (both Shougo, who is a qualified medic trained in Occidental medicine, and his sister Sayo) in Rurouni Kenshin.
  • In the Pokémon Special manga, Yellow is blessed by the Viridian Forest, meaning that she has the magical power to instantly heal Pokémon with a single touch. While this (and her other Viridian blessed powers) makes up for her sub-par battling skills, overusing it will cause her mental strain, forcing her to fall asleep.

Comic Books
  • Joshua "Josh" Foley, aka Elixir, from X-Men. Elixir is quite possibly the most powerful mutant because he can manipulate DNA in order as his power and accelerate cell division. It manifests early on as healing powers, but he can just as easily kill you as he can heal you.
  • Lifeline from the GI Joe Animated Show and comic books. Gets lots of attention because he will never intentionally hurt someone. But is a master of a martial art that will redirect energy. A charging enemy will find himself fifteen feet away, out of breath, wondering what the heck threw him. There was also, in the original comics and some alternate universes, Doc, who was noted for his calm under fire, described as coming to you in the middle of a firefight "like he was a making a house call".
  • Shaman of Alpha Flight is the team Medic, being both a medicine man and a top notch surgeon (described as the 'best cutter in Canada'). He does, however, have plenty of combat ability.

Film
  • Wade from Saving Private Ryan is an Army medic and the second character in The Squad to die.
  • Pretty much any war movie (especially World War II movies) that are focused on The Squad invoke this trope.
  • The ship's doctor from The Hunt For Red October. He was naive(he didn't have the slightest idea that a hijacking was going on), but he was a good officer who kept order among the crew when the Red October was abandoned, he was caring about the sailor's welfare, and he would well qualify as a Worthy Opponent.

Literature
  • In JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Aragorn is a sword-and-archery ranger and warrior, but perhaps the only member of the Fellowship of the Ring with medical knowledge. Admittedly his medical knowledge seems to primarily consist of "athelas is awesome" — and his Royal Blood — but that tends to be good enough.
    • Athelas is used only for exposure to the deadly "Black Breath" Nazgul. Aragorn was raised in Rivendell by Elrond, the greatest healer in all Middle-earth, and was second only to Elrond in medicine. Aragorn cures Frodo's and Sam's wounds in Moria; and After the Battle of the Pelennor, Aragorn tends to all the wounded and heals them, regardless of the severity of their wounds. Finally, Sam and Frodo are so bad-off at the end of the adventure, that they lay comatose for two weeks after Aragorn tends to them; but they are fully healed by Aragorn(in body, at least, while Frodo's cure can be found only in Valinor). Pippin is likewise fully healed, despite being crushed by a troll. (Aragorn's skills seem limited to physical ailments, however, as Eowyn suffers from a melancholy that he admits is beyond his skill, and which deeply troubled him even while facing unspeakable peril. That emotional damage is actually healed by Faramir, whom Éowyn befriends and later falls in love with).
    • Merry is a medic, having extensive knowledge in herb lore and later writing books about it. He also appears to have given some education on the matter to King Théoden, though it is unclear if they ever had time for this or just planned to talk about it.
      • Not really. He is an expert in herbs for smoking. That's the Hobbit equivalent of Cultured Warrior . Merry is never actually shown healing people.
    • In The Silmarillion, the elf-maiden Luthien and the archer Beleg also possess healing abilities and knowledge.
  • In CS Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy Pevensie, youngest of the four siblings, is given a cordial of a miraculous potion that heals all injuries. But it was Susan, the second eldest and the Straight Arrow, who was The Chick and the Team Mom.
  • In 'Team Kimba', the group of the protagonists at the Super Hero School Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, The Medic is mainly the role of Fey, who is a wizard with healing powers. She's also an empath. But she's not really a Squishy Wizard, since she is learning to wield a scimitar, and has hugely powerful offensive spells, even if she might want other members of the team to provide the muscle to give her enough time to perform her best spells. Another member of the team, Bladedancer, is the go-to girl for herbs and soothing balms.
    • The most dedicated medic among the students that we've seen so far, however, may just be the blind devisor Jericho, who isn't actually on the team (though friends with some of them after a few harrowing encounters) and has to do it all by inventing the tools he needs himself because he has no actual innate healing powers.
  • Subverted in the Sven Hassel WW 2 novel OGPU Prison. A medical orderly robs the wounded, demands a huge bribe for getting Sven onto a hospital train and brutally kicks a crawling amputee out of his path. On an earlier occasion another orderly is shown abandoning a truckful of wounded and making off with a submachine gun and a Red Cross bandolier on each arm (knowing that at least some Russian soldiers won't shoot at him). Though Sven's friends wish the orderly a well-deserved death, one cynically comments: "That kind lives through any war."
  • Belknap in Dan Abnett's second and third Ravenor novels. Treats the indignant illegally, after he was caught at fraud: trying to get medical help to the people who weren't supposed to get it. And when he thinks Ravenor and company are a gang, does his best to get Zael away from them. All this goodness in the Warhammer40000 universe, no less.
  • Dorden and Curth in the Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts novels.
    • Also, Kolding in Blood Pact.
  • Arriott in Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novel Death Or Glory fits the type very well, though he was actually a vet pressed into duty to humans by the circumstances.
  • Stephen Maturin in the Aubrey-Maturin series—he's the ship's surgeon and a Badass Bookworm to boot, being incredibly skilled with both swords AND guns. Captain Aubrey and the rest of the crew have undying faith in his prowess. It's well-founded, as he was able to perform a successful evacuation of a subdural hematoma (bleeding into one's brain) aboard ship during a battle, and with 19th century technology, too!
    • All the more notable since Maturin is a physician, not a surgeon. (It was even more of an issue then as opposed to now, since surgeons did not attend medical school and the overwhelming majority of physicians considered surgery a common craft beneath their professional station. For Maturin to know even the first thing about surgery, let alone undertake and succeed at half a dozen different procedures just in the first novel, is unusual in the extreme.)
      • Heck, it is even more impressive that a physician would even consider a job in the navy. Physicians are usually drawn from the upper-class and would consider a a job at sea to be sacrilegious. At that time (c. 1800) there are only a dozen physicians compared to one thousand surgeons in the Royal Navy.
  • In William King's Warhammer 40000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, though in a Wretched Hive far down in the levels, Ragnar and Haegr stumble on Brother Malburius, who treats Haegr's injuries.
  • This describes Polgara's job in the Belgariad pretty well. She uses conventinal medicine, knows almost every sickness in the whole world and has a small box full of drugs always around. Her huge knowledge is comprehendible, after all she is 3000 years old.
  • An interesting take on the 'magical girl healer' idea is seen in the Vernor Vinge sci-fi novel A Fire Upon The Deep. Johanna, a 12 year-old girl from a spacefaring society, is stranded on the medieval world of the dog-like Tines. Each Tine is a pack of up to half a dozen members linked into a Hive Mind. Because two Tines cannot make bodily contact without being confused by the other's thoughts, Johanna's ability to physically nurse them gives her healing powers on a psychological level. (An assassination attempt on her fails because all the injured she had tended leapt to her defense.)
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe X Wing Series of novels had Ton Phanan, a rarity in commando squads: a fully-trained and licensed doctor and surgeon. He had none of the bedside manner, however. He did adhere to the Squishy Wizard stereotype by getting himself injured in battle (and eventually getting killed), though this was somewhat counteracted by his having to get cybernetic implants for more extensive injuries as he was "allergic to bacta". In addition, he was probably the least skilled pilot on the team.
  • In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Galaxy In Flames, Vaddon selflessly tends the injured among the betrayed loyalist Space Marines up to the moment that Horus's forces are let in and kill him and the wounded.
  • In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 novel Faith & Fire, the Hospitaller Verity. Watching the Gladiator Games=/=Human Sacrifice, she was overcome with horror and jumped out to help the injured. During the terrorist attack on it, she ministered to the wounded and administered last rites (losing count when she realized that the number would make her cry). And when she does shoot one terrorist, she is horrified.
  • The Discworld's Ankh-Morpork City Watch has The Igor as a medic, as do the Ins-And-Outs in Monstrous Regiment.

Live Action TV
  • Simon Tam from Firefly is an accomplished trauma surgeon on the run, who parlays his medical knowledge into passage on the ship. Simon also fits the trope on being completely incompetent with guns, although he makes up for it with his proficiency with drugs and poisons, as Jayne found out when he crossed him in The Train Job.
    • And going from Ariel, he's a pretty good tactician too.
    • Actually he mostly makes up for it with Heroic Spirit . I have seldom seen him show much sophistication in a fight but often seen him show a lot of "Sisu"(a Finnish word that doesn't translate precisely but applies perfectly).
      • He fits both the "personable" and the "rational" which makes him a well made character.
  • Martha Jones from Doctor Who (though the Doctor, as a Sufficiently Advanced Omnidisciplinary Scientist, occasionally steps on her toes).
  • Jack Shephard from Lost (along with the magical power of water) functioned as the survivors' Healer for quite some time, but the addition of Juliet has left him free to become his group's resident Bad Ass.
  • Eugene Roe and Ralph Spina from Band of Brothers are real life examples of the trope.
  • Every Star Trek series has a chief medical officer, who fills this role:
  • Steven Franklin from Babylon 5
  • Doc Cottle from the new Battlestar Galactica.
  • Janet Frasier on Stargate SG-1 until she got killed.
    • Samantha Carter was often the team medic off-world if the plot called for it, despite being a physicist and not knowing very much about medicine.
  • Even in episodes of Stargate Atlantis where he had nothing else to do, there was a darn good chance you'd see Beckett at the end of any episode patching up the heroes. Bigger Team Mom than any of the other doctors on either show.
  • Charley Dixon of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, who gets pulled into the whole time-traveling killer machine mess. He eventually loses his wife to one of the Terminators.
  • Generation Kill has HM 2 "Doc" Bryan, the squad's corpsman. Averts the Squishy Wizard part; Bryan doesn't look weaker in any way compared to the others, and he does not hesitate to call out Captain Swetje on his incompetence while others who share the opinion, despite having the opportunity to do it without reprimand, just shuffle their feet. He doesn't delay in engaging the enemy and even gains a kill count; though he's bothered by "feeling nothing" after shooting other human beings, he has no trouble functioning afterward.
  • Claire Bennett of Heroes has the unique ability to heal, not to mention the fact that her blood can also heal others, and even bring them back from the dead.
  • The paramedics of Third Watch.
  • How about Owen Harper from Torchwood? He's even quite fond of making it quite clear that he's DOCTOR Owen Harper in "Everything Changes".

Tabletop RPG
  • No tabletop RPG is complete without a healer archetype for the party. Dungeons And Dragons clerics and druids tended to be looked upon as walking medical units rather than characters, so for 3rd edition the developers went...perhaps too far the other way, and a well-played cleric or druid can be easily the most powerful character in a game ("CoDzilla"). On the other hand, the representatives of gods and forces of nature being the strongest characters in the game makes a certain kind of sense. This was lampshaded in an early Order Of The Stick strip, where after a fight Durkon the cleric asked what we do next, and in the next frame turned into a box of Band-aids.
    • D&D's recently-released fourth edition seems to reverse this trend by making it easy for any player character to recover by just taking a five-minute break after combat and spending enough 'healing surges'. Even after running out of those, a good night's rest will restore a character to full hit points (and reset the healing surge count to maximum as well). Actual healing powers still come into play during combat encounters, though, and the cleric is still potentially the best source (though the paladin and warlord classes also have their share of healing tricks).
    • D20 Modern includes 0 (that's zero) basic healing classes, and 1 (that's one) advanced class with healing abilities. In addition, there are 0 (zee-ro) instant healing items available in the vanilla setting. This makes combat significantly more dangerous, and a dungeon crawl is much more about avoiding damage than speeding through.
      • Technically, in a low-level or no-supernatural setting, the Wise Hero could serve as the healer, given that the Heal skill is based on the Wisdom score. Of course, this would come strictly in the form of minor healing and preventing a near-death character from dying, but such a character is often played as the medic anyhow.
      • There is a Surgery feat that lets a character heal a significant amount of damage, but requires several hours to do so.
    • Dungeons And Dragons 3rd Edition eventually created a base class known as healer. It's essentially the cleric, minus all the powerful buff spells that made it one of the most powerful classes in the game, without any offensive spells, without any armor proficiencies (in fact, explicitly unable to wear armor), and with a few more spells per day and some spell-like abilities (and a pet unicorn!), thus fitting this trope to a tee.
  • Valence 592's BioDocs avert this trope by behaving more like real-life medics: they can only stabilize the wounded, not bring them back up to fighting strength. They also have a rule that prevents Shoot The Medic First: all characters will think twice about attacking a BioDoc or someone they're tending to, as it is the universal way of saying "Go ahead, shoot mine too."
    • Duelists, on the other hand, can choose to heal other party members very quickly, including lost limbs if they are highly skilled. They also have the nasty habits of regenerating their worst wound every 10 seconds and pulling swords out of thin air.
  • The Cleric from GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy is a fantasy style healer that also requires actual medical knowledge in order to function properly.

Video Games
  • Sometimes played straight and subverted in Jagged Alliance 2. While some of the hire-able mercenaries with a high medical skill stat had relatively weak weapons, or an average marksmanship skill stat, some had either a good weapon to back them up, good marksmanship, both, or a high wisdom stat that makes marksmanship raise beyond that of dedicated sharpshooters in a in game hours of shooting crows. Nearly every medic also has a decent dexterity stat (as it is required to be a decent medic) that helps their accuracy slightly.
  • The Squishy Wizard part of this trope is subverted in Battlefield:Bad Company, where the one class that can heal others actually has a light machine gun, compared to the other classes' relativly small arms (assault rifles, shotguns, and SMG's.)
    • Also subverted in Battlefield 2142. EA decided to merge some of the Battlefield 2 classes together, and that game's Assault and Medic classes were combined into the Assault kit in 2142.
      • And AGAIN in Battlefield 2. The Medic class was basically an Assault soldier, but trades his assault rifle's under-barrel grenade launcher and heavy armor for healing capability (Both Assault and Medic classes within a faction use the same base rifle).
      • The Assault's Medic Unlock Gun, the Voss however is nothing to slouch at. It is one of the most popular choices for an unlock compared to the Baur Rifle which is seen as tricky to fire.
    • And the Medic in the original Battlefield 1942 was basicly 'Assault Class who can self-heal'. Nope, not overpowered at all there.
  • In Phantasy Star IV, you get various Medics. Raja was an old, green-skinned alien priest with a weird sense of humor, but also the straightest example. Rika was The Chick, but also a Fragile Speedster Cat Girl with disemboweling claws — she counts because she's the first real healer your party gets and remains competitive at it till the end. Demi, who came later, matched or exceeded Rika at healing, but was also a gun-toting Robot Girl who could install a Forgotten Super Weapon into her body.
    • Don't forget main character Chaz, who has the entire spectrum of single-target healing spells, several status-effect removing spells, and the lower level revival spell. In addition to being a swordfighter.
  • In Army Of Two subverts this, the game having two players working together at most, so either one may heal the other if they lose too many Hit Points to just Walk It Off
  • The inevitable Final Fantasy examples:
    • Rosa from Final Fantasy IV. White Mage, Staff Chick and Team Mom.
    • For the first 40% or so of Final Fantasy VI, Terra and Celes alternate in this role, being the only two natural magic users in the game until you recruit Strago, MUCH later on. Returner leader Banon also joins your party briefly, along with his amazing ability to heal everyone for free. Later on, everyone gets the power to use magic, so combat roles tend to become fuzzy at best, but most parties still include at least one designated healer (usually whoever has the worst offensive ability).
    • Given the Materia system of Final Fantasy VII, Mysterious Waif Aerith Gainsborough is the closest thing the game has to a dedicated healer. Whereas everyone else's Limit Breaks are super-attacks, Aerith's Limit Breaks exclusively consist of healing, curative, empowering, or protective effects. This may have something to do with her being the last surviving Cetra, capable of communing with The Lifestream of the Planet.
      • Note that Yuffie Kisaragi later gains a healing Limit Break.
    • Dagger/Garnet of Final Fantasy IX. The Chick, Mysterious Waif, and meekly-Rebellious Princess. There was also Eiko Carol, a Bratty Half Pint.
    • Final Fantasy X's Yuna is your primary healer through the early sections of the game, as she is the only character that starts with White Magic. Like Dagger, she's meek and becomes a rebel, eventually.
      • Qualifiers: one, the Sphere Grid, which a few items help you traverse in vast, screaming gallops, meaning you can make any character into anything. Two, Yuna has the summons, which potentially makes her all in all the most purely powerful character in the game offensively. Three, healing items are powerful and in some cases plentiful, so anybody can become a healer for one turn. Four, Rikku had access to even better items of all kinds including healing. Give any character her Use ability and an item with the Alchemy property and you have an ad hoc healer; an item with Alchemy and Auto-Phoenix combined with 99 Phoenix Downs (which you can buy) on any charater gives them the ability to bring you back from anything short of a one-hit Total Party Kill without even using a turn. Long story short, with a little work, Yuna can be your DPS and a character of your choice, likely Rikku, the healer.
  • Marle/Nadia of Chrono Trigger. Unlike Dagger and Yuna, she was a fiery Chick, and a straight-up Rebellious Princess. She was the first character to have a healing spell, and remained the strongest healer to the end. If Marle wasn't in your party, Frog or Robo had to serve. Ironically, Chrono had the power to Revive fallen friends.
    • It's worth noting that Marle never acquires a single tech mass heal power, severely cutting to her utility later in the game when almost all attacks are multitargeting. Really, all the good healing available without maxing stats in the game comes from dual techs. Frog/Marle Double Cure is ok, but Slurp Kiss from Frog/Ayla is actually about equal costing in power just a fraction of Double Cure, and Frog/Ayla is a better pair offensively. Once Aura Whirl starts to lose efficiency, Marle's utility is diminished.
      • In the endgame, Megalixers take the stage as the primary source of healing. And since you need Ayla to get an infinite supply...
  • Raine Sage of Tales Of Symphonia. Kratos, Zelos, and Regal all also have healing abilities, but Raine is The Medic of the lot.
    • Though Raine subverts the pacifism aspect of the trope, being one of the more cold and pragmatic members of the party. Notably, the teens have to do some arm-twisting before she is willing to heal Sheena, an apparent enemy.
  • Mint, from Tales Of Phantasia, does next to nothing but heal Cless at this point in this troper's game.
    • She even wears a nurse outfit, for crying out loud... however, she's VERY good at what she does.
  • The Star Ocean games have their own healers as well: Millie, Rena and Noel, Sophia, and Sarah respectively in numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.
  • Estelle in Talesof Vesperia is clearly The Medic of the party, both plotwise and gameplay-wise (although arguably she's the actually the least effective healer because of the balance issues of spells with cast times). In a subversion of the Squishy Wizard aspect, she's actually the character with the most defense and can choose to use a sword. Well, her melee attacks are pretty awkward like throwing toy hammers at people. Slightly subverted in that with the right skills she learns the Holy Rain spell which blasts everything on the screen in a manner more associated with Black Magician Girl Rita. Estelle's mystic arte is also the only one that heals plus like Mint she too has her own nurse outfit.
  • In Resident Evil:Zero, Rebecca Chambers is the only medic in S.T.A.R.S. She's either already earned her medical doctorate, or she's still working on it (this troper doesn't remember). During her various zombie-overun field missions, all she can do is mix herbs together to make more effective healing items. And being the smallest controllable character in any Resident Evil game, she's understandably the weakest as well.
    • In the books, as well as being the medic, she's an accomplished biochemist, a genius, and a Mary Sue. Not everyone found this annoying.
  • Ness from Earthbound, who is your only psychic healer for half the game. At the endgame, he has a huge capacity of PP, and Lifeup Omega, which refreshes your entire team at once. But by then you've also got Prince Poo, whose edge over Ness is the fact that he can revive reliably via Healing Omega, and he has Magnet to replenish what he uses up when his involvement isn't necessary. It's a toss-up, really.
    • Lucas of Mother 3 is a straighter example. He's more focused on positive support and healing whereas Kumatora is more into negative support and offense.
  • In GearsOfWar2, human characters that are 'downed' may yell out "Medic!", but the game subverts this trope in that any allied player can help them in that instance.
  • "Medic" from Team Fortress 2... though he comes across as sadistic and weird. Which makes him fit right into the setting of the game.
    Medic: "Ein, zwei, dr- ugh, I do not zink ve brought enough body bags..."
    • Also, in something of a subversion, Team Fortress 2's Medics aren't all that squishy, either. Although they're a bit low on health (but not the lowest), they're the second-fastest class, their regular melee weapon has a higher chance to do critical damage on a hit than other melee weapons under normal circumstances, and that seemingly harmless syringe gun is surprisingly useful at close ranges, provided that you have good aim. The upgraded syringe gun gives a health boost; add on the fact the Medic can regenerate health normally...
      • Of course, they still have the shortest life expectancy of any class, especially if the other team know what they're doing.
    • The Medic from Team Fortress Classic subverted the Squishy Wizard part of this trope. He had a powerful weapon, great speed, and self-regenerating health and was generally the best offensive class.
      • This, combined with his ability to fling himself around the map with concussion greandes, lead to a bizarre situation where the Medic was usually off running flags, rather than actually healing. Since he's the only class that can heal, though, he gets the title by default.
  • Star Wars Battlefront has the "Pilot" class. The CIS and Empire variants are ridiculously overpowered, with large supplies of health and ammo kits, the ability to build turrets, and frickin' grenade launchers.
  • Many Real Time Strategy games feature medics, such as the Terran Medic from Starcraft and the Monk from Age Of Empires.
    • World In Conflict however has no dedicated medic unit. Instead, one of the squad members in the basic Infantry unit is a medic, able to heal his teammates and infantry of other squads.
    • Age Of Mythology makes healing a matter of the gods. Only the Egyptians get healing by default from their priests and pharaoh, the other factions rely on myth units, god powers or god-related upgrades for healing. Depending on what minor gods you choose you might not get any means of healing your units at all.
  • The Golden Sun series has... a few. Water adepts make natural healers. While technically, with the right djinn, anyone can heal (in fact, when you first meet Mia, Isaac has more powerful heals), but Mia is the best choice for primary healer. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Piers, an arrogant, Really Seven Hundred Years Old Bishounen, is the only good healer (until you meet up with the group from the original game, which includes Mia).
    • In total, there are 5 medics if you stick to base classes (i.e. all Djinn of the default element. Felix and Issac (weaker healing psyenergy with Revive ability), Piers (Stronger healing psyenergy but no revive ability), Mia (Same psyenergy as Piers as well as some weaker ones that affect the whole party), and Jenna (Slightly stronger versions of Mia's, but no single-character spells.) Ivan, Sheba and Garret all get party-healing psynergy with the right djinn combinations though.
  • While several people know heal spells in Super Robot Wars Original Generation, the best one is Russel Bagman, who learns both healing spells, and is one of the best support players in the game.
  • Princess Peach in Super Mario RPG. The only alternative is Mallow, but he's more of a Red than a White.
  • In the games, some Pokemon learn moves to heal other members on the party, like Heal Bell and Arometherapy, which heal the Standard Status Effects. Others like the Chansey line and Miltank have the moves Softboiled and Milk Drink to heal others outside battle.
    • While most Pokemon that learn healing moves are Squishy Wizards, one subversion is the Arometherapy-using Parasect, which is a huge, clawed cicada nymph which has been zombified by parasitic fungus, whose highest stat is attack. It also learns attacks which heal itself while harming the foe.
  • Tokyo Mew Mew never needed a medic in-series, but once it got a licensed PlayStation game, Ikumi Mia was commissioned to design one. The result was Akaii Ringo, a cutesy young penguin-girl whose powers come from the Mew Aqua instead of having special adaptable DNA. She uses apple-shaped maracas and, like the team's hyper kid Bu-ling, calls everyone "big sister". All in all, not the Team Mom.
  • Persona 3: While several other Persona-users know healing spells as well, Yukari Takeba often ends up as the designated Medic whenever she's in the party, as she's the only character who learns both party-wide healing spells and revival spells. She even lampshades her role in some incidental dialog towards the beginning of the game.
  • In Kingdom Hearts, either you (as Sora) can serve as the team's Medic, or you can leave that job to Donald Duck. Goofy can also easily be loaded up with restorative items, since he has the largest personal inventory space in any of the games.
  • In Planescape Torment, Fall-from-Grace is the only healer you can get in your team, making her quite useful. Her healing magic is even glowy. On the other hand, she is all but useless as a fighter and doesn't have many offensive spells.
  • The playerbase of City Of Heroes is divided on this issue. New players who import mindsets from other games assume that the Empathy powerset, which focuses on restoring HP, is an absolute must for team success, and they insist that Defenders — who can choose it as a primary powerset — should always have it. Those more familiar with the game understand that the Defender Archetype is not your typical Healer Class. Its purpose is loosely, "keep allies from dying," and all its myriad possible abilities work toward this in some fashion. Yes, this includes making enemies dea- er, "arrested" if need be, but more often involves Status Buffs and debuffs. These proactive options are generally more effective than Empathy, so the more experienced players tend to look down on the ignorant Empathy-demanders.
    • As Empathy is exclusive to the hero side of the game, villain players are very used to playing without a dedicated healer on their teams and look even more down on hero players who will not do anything without an Empathy healer standing by.
      • And the drama only got worse when the developers recently gave Pain Domination, an "evil" healing set, to the villain players.
    • It should be noted that the Controller Archetype on the hero side can choose Empathy as a secondary powerset, and thus serve as the "literal" Medic of a team despite being the "Mezzer" class. But furthermore, anyone — including villains — can pick the small Medicine pool of abilities as a tertiary set of powers.
    • The real issue is when players who are used to serving as this trope in other MMOs come here and think that turning 'Healing Aura' on automatic and following the tank- that's it- is contributing to a team. Also that, especially in higher levels, healing very much pales in comparison to Status Buffs: stacked buffs make characters godlike. Working as intended. We don't need your puny heals here.
  • Carlie from Seiken Densetsu 3 is the only character to possess healing magic for every single class of hers, and remains by far the best at it throughout the entire game. Her dark-aligned classes can also do decent damage with summons, while her light-aligned classes focus more on party buffs. Strangely enough, the only two other characters to learn healing magic, Duran and Kevin, are otherwise devoted physical powerhouses.
  • In Final Fantasy games, the White Mage class is normally the healer, although there are other variations. In Final Fantasy XI, there are also Scholars, Dancers, Red Mages and Blue Mages, as well as Summoners, although a White Mage subjob is normally required for these jobs, but Dancer is an exception. The healer priority gets changed at the higher levels, where the TP-burn mentality is in full swing, as Red Mages suddenly get the top spot due to not having a stronger healing ability, but because they can Cast From HP and be more efficient healers... which results in a "Red Mage or bust" train of thought, though less stupid parties do invite other healers when possible.
  • The Medic unit in Star Craft: Brood War. Which in this troper's eyes revitalised the use for infantry, since a bunch of medics made them much less squishy.
    • Revitalised? More like made entirely viable. M&M (Marine & Medics, with the odd Firebat thrown in) rushes became a fairly effective blunt-hammer attack, especially with Medics able to heal the self-damage caused from the Stim Packs the Marines keep popping in order to move and shoot faster. Certainly they made the computer opponent that much more dangerous, as the computer used Heal so effectively it's like the game had an autocast option...
  • Subverted in the Mobile Suit Gundam spinoff RPG MS Saga. Most of the characters are competent healers. However, the one character that is often used as The Medic happens to be a loudmouth, insensitive jerk with bad fashion sense and an annoying voice. He also tends to be really, really good at shooting stuff, depending on the particular mech setup he's given. Also, although the main character is generally used as The Tank, he gets the best healing spell in the entire game, which may or may not turn him into The Medic at the end game. The character who the player would be most likely to assume to be The Medic and Staff Chick, personality-wise, instead is used as a buffer/de-buffer, and has powerful ranged attacks as well.
  • Etrian Odyssey has a Medic Class, whose abilities are primarily steeped in healing. The Protector class can also use low-level healing spells if sufficiently levelled up.
  • Any Roguelike inverts this by requiring all classes to become proficient at healing. You won't last long otherwise. In ADOM, choosing to play as a healer merely determines your class powers and starting skillset. They also gain double HP regeneration,making them effective melee fighters. A trollish healer born under the sign of the Candle is a Wolverine-class healing factor-equipped club-wielding melee fighter,and thus enormous fun.
  • Alex Nolan from Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. As the medic, he can fully heal squad members (whereas you or your sqaudmates can only restore a downed squadmate's condition back to red), and is the only person that can heal the player. However, he is only armed with a P90 sub-machine gun, and it thus unsuited for medium to long range engagements.
  • Cream the Rabbit serves this role in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, and how. She is incredibly good at restoring the entire party's PP (as well as hers, and in her second and third levels of this ability, can restore more than it costs. ), can make the opposing party miss a lot more, she's the only character who can revive others, and she can heal on the off chance that your entire party isn't doing good.
    • By alternative, Tails has an ability that replenishes HP and PP simultaneously at deployment and for the next three rounds, and it STACKS! He also packs an armor debuff, an attribute debuff for organics and machines alike, a defense buff for one person, and a buff that grants the target an extra action, AND he acts twice compared to Cream's once. He's more of a Green than a White, though, but it's a good idea to have both for when the team needs to split up. Oh, did I mention Cream's optional and missable?
  • Suikoden II features the main character's Bright Shield Rune. The primary purpose of the rune is to heal and protect, and it does a better job of it than any other rune in the game, making the main character the de facto healer for the game. Which is a shame, because he eventually becomes extremely powerful. The opposite the Bright Shield Rune, the Black Sword Rune, is focused entirely on dealing damage, and does that better than any other rune in the game. Sadly, you don't control it for 95% of the game.
  • In the Might And Magic series, your team would be pretty doomed without at least a capable healer (by capable, meaning at least a Paladin, Monks took too much to start first-aid duty.), but, most of the time, you could easily find yourself overwhelmed without a secondary capable healer (Cleric with Druid or Paladin makes a very survivable party). Of course, a good alchemist could take the role to an extent, making healing contraptions, but the relative rarity of ingredients made him more of an emergency last resort (since some potions healed more than any healing spell and any character could use it on any other). However, by the end-game of some installments, the Squishy Wizard far surpassed the medic in healing skills as long as he had enough victims in the screen for Soul Drinker, a top-tier Dark Magic spell.
    • Interestingly, in the Heroes Of Might And Magic (sorta) spin-off, the medic-type hero had a kind of more extreme role. Instead of healing single units (which was largely useless in the scale) his role was bringing them back from the dead em-masse. The heroes of The Undead were the heroes most likely to become The Medic because of the fact that the spell to revive undead was much more accessible than the living counter-part, though both relied on Earth Magic.
      • Also, in a pinch Raise Undead even works on living units, making it possible to use them as a buffer (since they'd be lost by the end of the battle when resurrected that way).
      • Archangels qualify as a unit variation, being able to resurrect allies once per battle. First Aid tents with the appropriate skill can do so aswell, but they heal for meager amounts.
  • Valkyria Chronicles has the unnamed Medic from Skies Of Arcadia, who is later revealed to be a set of triplets who are all serving as medics in the militia.
  • Mega Man X Command Mission has Cinnamon, whose Action Trigger healed the whole party by an amount largely determined by your ability to spin the C-stick in a circle. She also had an exclusive Sub Weapon, Energy Field, which increased the amount of weapon energy all characters gained on their next turn (characters regenerate weapon energy each turn in Command Mission). Being a Sub Weapon, it could be used on the same turn as an attack or (if you had enough WE) the healing move. With a relatively easily obtained set of equipment, she could alternate between the two each turn.
  • The Magician->Cleric->Priest->Bishop Job branch in Maple Story. No party in its right mind faces any boss without at least one unless they're way over the required level. To elaborate: The Cleric can heal, the Priest can give a huge stat boost, boost Exp gains, and make a two way door to the nearest town to restock, and the Bishop gets the single most powerful attack spell in the game.
  • In Paper Mario: TTYD Ms. Mowz has an ability called smootch. When done correctly, Mario can heal up to 10 HP.
  • The Overlord series has the Blues. They are the most fragile of the Minions and are rather useless in battle. They make up for it by being able to revive dead Minions and by being able to swim. And in the sequel they can clean up the magical ooze that hurts you and mutates your other minions into enemies.
  • Touhou's Eirin Yagkoro is usually portrayed in doujin and fanart as Gensokyo's resident doctor.

Web Comics
  • In Order Of The Stick, Durkon Thundershield is a cleric, and the team's resident healer. But being a dwarven cleric of Thor, he's sporting metal armor, a shield, a hammer, and the ability to occasionally throw lightning bolts or grow to gigantic size for emergency muscle.
  • Gregory Deegan of Dominic Deegan ought to count. Notable in that he's become one of the top tier mages of the series since his White Magic makes him near unkillable and gives him a power boost against Infernomancers and Necromancers.
    • Too bad he seems to have lost his white magic for good in a recent arc.
  • Piffany in Nodwick. She generally has to bring Nodwick back from the dead every other week five minutes, which for some reason involves wrapping him in duct tape, although other methods turn up from time to time, such as pouring him into a mould if he's been powdered (and adding water). She's also got the usual repertoire of D&D Cleric skills (Shoo Undead, Happy Thoughts... okay, maybe not so usual).

Real Life

  • Dominique-Jean Larrey, the Crowning Medic of Awesome. He revolutionized medicine in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars, invented the field ambulance, and greatly increased sanitation and medevac in the French Medical Corps.
  • Pretty much any Army combat medic or Navy hospital corpsman (note that the Marines don't field their own medics, they borrow HMs from the Navy). The Navy Hospital Corps is particularly notable for being the most decorated corps in the Navy, having earned 22 Medals of Honor, 174 Navy Crosses and thousands of lesser awards, all despite being non-combatant.
  • What, no mention of Florence Nightingale? During the Crimean War, she practically invented modern nursing practices by introducing things like hygience, good lighting, diet, and excercise to the Selimiye Barracks she was sent to. The changes she brought cut the mortality rate at that hospital from 42% to 2.2%. That's not all she did, either. [1]

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