Is combat required to be called a Combat medic?

Yes, they are the first person you see on the field so that he can get you back too the rear. Their in combat just like everyone in the unit.

I have BEEN both a Combat Engineer and a Medic.

Combat Engineer is an MOS ( 12B ). If you are a Combat Engineer and your unit deploys to some place in which US forces are engaging in combat, I'm pretty sure you're going to be exposed to combat.

Combat Medic is NOT an MOS. (Yes, a medic has an MOS, but it's name is not "Combat Medic" That MOS title is not a thing. 91B was a "Medical Specialist" and 68W is a "Healthcare Specialist?" Combat Medic is a position.) A medic attached to a rifle platoon or similar organization is a "combat medic". One could possibly extend the term to anyone assigned a frontline ambulance who links up at ambulance exchange points. I don't recall what the term on an org chart or MTO&E is for the position. I'd put my money on plain, "medic."

Many responses in this thread are from non-medics. I would like to point out that there are no "cool points" that I was every aware of associated with the term "combat medic." It's just a way of describing the role a particular medic is performing in their current duty station. More on that below...

When I went through Fort Sam Houston, we trained very nearly EXCLUSIVELY on clinical skills and anatomy and physiology. It felt like we were training to man a civilian ambulance. We had a tiny "field problem" (even by Fort Sham standards, this was a really weak field problem) and we did the litter obstacle course a few times and I think we learned what order to load and unload an FLA. But there was very little focus on tactical.

Many medics from my class went to hospitals and troop medical clinics. If they spent their careers there, then it is very doubtful that they encountered much of the lifestyle experienced in a typical maneuver unit or received much tactical training.

Some medics (I don't know the proportion) went to maneuver units or to forward support units. In a maneuver unit (Infantry, Armored Cavalry, Combat Engineer) a medic learns a lot of tactical knowledge from the Soldiers they are supporting and by participating in training activities in their role as a medic. Medics in a forward support unit are responsible for performing some medical evacuation tasks that are very similar to or identical to those performed by medics in a maneuver unit (which is why I say that I would probably use the term combat medic to describe them as well).

I originally had orders (for my first duty station) to some kind of clinical unit in Vicenza, Italy. After some issues with weather and our MAC flight, and an issue with filing a claim of the suitcase that British Airways set on fire, those orders were given to somebody else and I was told to stay in Germany. I was sent to 3d Infantry Division (broken TV set) and given orders (and congratulations) to the hospital in Nurnburg. I asked the NCO that gave me those orders if he could get orders to a maneuver unit instead. (It's complicated.) Three days later, a gruff NCO from 16th Engineer Battalion showed up to take me to Furth. As a medic in a Combat Engineer battalion, I was assigned to HHC, but attached to a Sapper platoon in B/16E. Via OJT, I learned the things that make a combat medic, a combat medic (the things that were omitted at Fort Sam Houston).

Once you are in one track or the other (clinical vs tactical), you tend to stay there. Even though I had encountered two sets of orders to clinical units, after I ended up in a Combat Engineer battalion, my next orders were to HHT 1/3 ACR Squadron Aid Station (the Cav).

(As long as I'm writing my memoirs here, might as well continue...)

I later ended up a 12B (Combat Engineer), but still had a secondary MOS of 91B. So, our platoon effectively had 2 medics (I didn't carry an aid bag) - the one attached from HHC, and myself.

Again, though. Much of this thread seems to focus on some kind of "honorary" component to the term "combat medic" and it was not my experience that any cool points were associated with it. It was just one part of a binary-split for the medic MOS (either you're clinical or you're combat medic).

You Army folks find the most trivial things to argue about. This is just one "old" Marine's opinion, but "Doc" is my hero -- from the HMC who sat up all night with me at OCS trying to get one hurting officer candidate with severe stomach cramps some sleep for the day ahead to the 18-year old HM3 who stitched up my arm in a rice paddy to the HM2 PA who put 23 sutures in my leg from a construction accident. Two were FMF Corpsmen and one was not, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Get off the trivial BS and start dealing with how to fight both the war we have and the next one and not some silly-ass argument about an adjective!

In 2016, I was the NCOIC of Cadre Development at the Department of Combat Medic Training (68W Schoolhouse). We lobbied successfully to have the name of the MOS changed to Combat Medic Specialist in order to dispel the impression that new medics were training for anything other than to go into harms way and provide point of injury care to Soldiers on the battlefield. Since the Army split all of the hospital based skill identifiers (M6 LVN, for example) back to their own MOS, it didn’t make sense for our medics to be called Healthcare Specialists anymore. So, a 68W is a Combat Medic Specialist now. We didn’t care for the Specialist part of the MOS title, but the powers that be at AMEDD Center and School informed us that for legal reasons, the term Specialist had to remain in the title.

All jobs can serve in combat, some sound cooler than others when you put combat in front. However, the Combat Engineer IS different from a regular engineer, hence the official title. A combat engineer is one who specializes in combat operations, namely demolition work, mine detection and road clearing. but at combat speed. These are they guys who are at most a few miles from the point, ready to rush forward to clear obsticals fast so that Armor, Cav and Infantry can rush through. As opposed to regular engineers who will pretty the breaches up, make more passable, build roads, and buildings as directed. This is why they even have their own MOS that is widely separated from the other engineer MOS's (12 series when I was in for combat 62 and 51 for the rest). Just my 2 pennies on that one.

Doc is doc. They all volunteered , some see combat some don't, but they all took the same risk, they have the same schooling. So to me they're all Doc, they earned that right at least from an old jarhead point of view. The Army part I've got no real clue, but I suspect they all deserve the same respect. They volunteer to to get up and move around while everyone else has their dick in the dirt. After that's it's fate, and much respect to anyone who assumes that risk and responsibility.

When I went through AIT in 1989 my MOS was 91A Combat Medical Specialist. That's what it said on all of my paperwork.

Considering that the official MOS title has been officially changed to "Combat Medic Specialist", I probably would. But you do you...

The biggest point is did you trust that medic? If not that is an issue for the PLT Sgt to fix.

Combat engineer specifies a very specific MOS (12B) to differentiate it from the other 12 series of engineered. 12Bs deal with mobility and countermobility operations, typically dealing with explosives. The other 12 series deal with the more typically construction type jobs (carpentry, electrical, plumbing, interior, concrete/asphalt, etc.).
That is why there is COMBAT in front of a 12B Combat Engineer.