RED Medic

"What he lacks in compassion for the sick, respect for human dignity, and any sort of verifiable formal training in medicine, the Medic more than makes up for with a bottomless supply of giant needles and a trembling enthusiasm for plunging them into exposed flesh. Raised in Stuttgart, Germany during an era when the Hippocratic oath had been downgraded to an optional Hippocratic suggestion, the Medic considers healing a generally unintended side effect of satisfying his own morbid curiosity."

With that encouraging tidbit in mind the Medic arguably sits at the closer insane end of the sanity scale, along with the Soldier and the Pyro. Brilliant and second to none in his knowledge of all things anatomical and medical, the RED Medic is the needle-happy sadistic healer of the RED team. Exuding an fervent passion for understanding and enhancing the human body beyond mortal limits, there's no one on the team save for the Engineer who can match the Medic when it comes to patching a team mate up quickly. Or taking them apart with his bonesaw, but it's all good, it's for the PURSUIT OF SCIENCE.

Not much canon is revealed about the Medic directly; what is known is that:

1. The Medic acquired his flock of doves (including Archimedes, his stalwart companion of a dove who shares his owner's fascination with gibs, innards and gore) after hijacking a catering van during the prime minister's wedding;
2. He lost his medical license around the time a patient lost a heart to a doctor that was never seen off or heard from again (it has not been confirmed if said doctor is our dear RED Medic but at least the RED Medic and the RED Heavy had a good laugh over the story);
3. He created the Uber charge and possibly designed and created the Reanimator (eat your heart out BLU Med);
4. He's swapped each of his team mates' and his own heart with a Mega-Baboon's to make all of them Uber-compatible;
5. The Sound of Medicine update provides a more precise location for Medic's hometown: the idyllic, quaint country village of Rottenburg. Apparently the town has a tradition of chasing the next in the resident lineage of mad doctors out of town with torches and pitchforks whenever they swapped out too many super-charged baboon hearts, so maybe Medic's story about the patient isn't quite such a tall tale after all;
6. As at the Ring of Fired arc, he's supposedly holding a 'fancy job' according to the Demoman; and
7. Despite the over-the-top, deliberately stereotypical, and ridiculously thick German accent the Medic has, the Soldier thinks he's American (an assumption the Medic has conveniently 'forgotten' to correct).

While these jumble of facts do paint quite an...interesting picture of the dear doctor, Valve has yet to release a solid background on the RED Medic. Some headcanon I have about the Medic prior to his job at RED:

Medic was born Vincenz Schmude in Rottenburg. The Schmude family has a very interesting relationship with the other residents of the village; an age-old contract signed between representatives of the town and the patriach of the Schmude family a few hundred years ago allowed the Schmude family to continue with their experiments (apparently madness does run in the family) so long as they functioned as the resident doctor of Rottenburg. Every male doctor was given a quota of seven times seven less seven times six (effectively seven, but in ye olde days people were quite convoluted in their contracts) unfortunate victims before the town would run the doctor out. The doctor's family would be left unharmed, and the next male heir of the family would be trained to be the next resident mad doctor of Rottenburg.

Somehow this agreement worked; for ten generations of Schmudes', there were ten doctors run out of town, each replaced by a son who was more crazy and outlandish than the father. The townspeople tolerated, accepted, and even came to be proud of their custom and the crazy family of doctors in the village, while the Schmudes were left to work in peace.

(Technically so long as a Schmude didn't cross the seven times seven less seven times six line they wouldn't be any village mobs, but asking a Schmude to refrain from experimenting on people was akin to asking them not to breath. Plus, the town loved a good chase; things just aren't the same without their pitchforks, torches and rakes. And the revenue they earned from tourists would be sorely missed).

However young Vincenz broke tradition when he became the first Schmude to be run out of town before his father (to the embarrassment and pride of the man) at the tender age of twelve. After experimenting on his entire class of thirty nine equally young boys, he couldn't resist claiming the fortieth mark (coincidentally the town mayor) despite being fully aware of what would happen. Vincenz was never seen off or heard from again (as was the tradition of the village) and his father made sure to arrange for his brother-in-law in Stuttgart to pick the boy up and raise him in the town. From there, he quickly graduated, went to study medicine in Switzerland, picked up his medical license, and accidentally operated on the prime minister's brother before making his escape in a catering van (that's how he lost his medical license!). From there he was contacted by Reliable Excavations and Demolitions and given the opportunity to saw through, inject, and mess around with as many organs as he liked in their Research and Development department. Little wonder he jumped at the opportunity and flew immediately to America, where he worked a solid two decades before deciding he wanted a little more action than what he got at the lab. Signing up to be the next RED Medic at Thunder Mountain, Vincenz happily packed his bags, bid his colleagues auf wiedersehn (they were all too happy to see him go) and introduced the rest of the RED team at his new base to the wonders of harming before healing (and more harming after that, because it's really no fun to just heal all the time).