Combat medic

Norwegian Army medics wearing red cross armbands during an exercise in 2007

An Iraqi Ground Forces medic next to his military ambulance featuring a red crescent emblem

A combat medic is someone in the military who has medical training. Their job is to heal sick or injured soldiers on the battlefield. Medics contributing to a war usually have a symbol on their uniform to let others know their role and the most well-known symbols used are the Red Cross and Red Cresent logos.

Combat medics usually have medical training to use out in the field. Their experience and practise happens outside of war, in military hospitals that help citizens nearby, and school, as well as learning how to be a medic from their branch of the military (such as the Air Force or Marines). This training includes getting people in active firefights out to safety or instructing them on how to get to safety so that the medic can treat them. Training for bleeding, gunshot wounds, damage caused by debris of shrapnel helps the medic do their job. A medic can help an injured solder get back in the fight as when they are injured they are not much good for their team, meaning that as well as potentially saving the lives of their squadmates they also make the unit more efficient.

Training

One example of what a combat medic might be trained for is to notice and treat a pneumothorax, which may happen when there is a gunshot or knife wound to the chest. In this case, using the medics training (MARCH protocol), the medic might check for an exit wound (on the back where the bullet comes out) to see if the bullet is still in there. They can apply bandages or sticky patches over the chest to seal the hole, as well as releasing pressure from the lung with a needle if required. They are trained to put the lung with the gunshot wound higher when they are rolling the person so that it does not add pressure to the lung when the injured person is being moved. An injured soldier might be moved during the last stage of their treatment for example on to a stretcher. This also might happen during the last stage of MARCH (hypothermia) where the patient is transerred onto a stretcher and a foil blanket is wrapped around them.

In the US and North America, field medics are trained using the MARCH protocol, or MARCH as well as PAWS. MARCH stands for: Massive (hemorrhage), Airway, Respiration, Circulation, Head Injury/hypothermia; PAWS stands for: Pain Management, Antibiotics, Wounds (management), splints. This training is used outside of war combat by police officers too.

A field medic might listen to the breath sounds and watch the diaphragm moving to check for bilateral breathing or if both lungs are working normally, for example in the event of a pneumothorax.

Protections

Medics are protected by the Geneva Conventions. This means that anyone who purposefully attacks or kills a medic clearly wearing medical clothing and has no weapon in their hand commits a war crime. Even though it is a war crime, some soldiers will still attack medics. An example of this is the Japanese military during World War II, when officers would pay soldiers extra money for killing medics. For this reason, most medics carry a pistol or a carbine just in case they need to protect themselves and the soldiers they are treating.