Spy hunting time trade off vs healing

As a Medic I often catch far more spies than my team, with the possible exception of the pyros. So far I usually call them out on voice chat and then pursue them with the blut/ubersaw aggressively. About 2/3-3/4 of my outright kills are spies. I have a pretty good kdr against them but obviously it comes at the expense of some healing. Do the other medics here usually drop healing to go on spy hunts or let their teammates deal with the spy?

If you can get ubersaw hits in, go for it. But otherwise just call him out to your team and let them deal with it.

The ubersaw should only be used out of convenience or last resort. If you have to defend yourself use the needlegun and get to a teammate fast. I've found that pursuing ubersaw hits generally ends in death, even in an escape situation where you are desperate for an uber.

Clumsy spies often give this convienience, but if you see him bring out a revolver and create distance, switch to needles. (A smart spy will switch to revolver to get himself out of a sticky situation just as a medic will use his needlegun.)

DON'T chase down the spy with your ubersaw or needles. As a Spy, I've seen countless Medics chase after me after I've backstabbed their patient, and walked right into a hell storm of fire from my team.

In general, it's better to tell your teammate and hide behind him. If your teammate has a shred of intelligence the spy is done. If not, join another server or heal somebody else.

But if you can't do either of those, just ditch your noob patient and needle him, but don't chase him. your team needs you and chances are you'll catch the spy later.

I call Spy on comms first, and then immediately go after the Spy.  If you can reach the Spy first before he gets to your patient, I usually do 1 swing with the melee and immediately change to Blut and try to finish him off.  If he ends up killing the patient because the patient didn't heed your warning, tell the patient later on that they need to listen for Spy warnings and check their six next time, it's all you can do to give them a head's up to their blind spot.

If the Spy attempts to flee/cloak, pursue with the Needles until you get a kill or he evades you.  If he stays to fight, and you have very good accuracy with the saw, use it - that Spy's death could give you a full ubercharge as reward (if you have the Ubersaw)  You just have to remember that Spies can frontstab you, and their revolver can kill you in 2 shots, so getting up close may not be a good option for a Spy who's lucky or a good shot.  If that's the case, stay at range, dodge and sink a load of needles into him.

In most public games, simply calling out the spy isn't enough. I always shoot if I see a spy from a distance, or melee him if he's going for me or my patient. Most spies on public games tend to be quite suicidal in my experience, and willingly engage in knife fights, hoping for a lucky backstab in a face to face fight. Against good spies however I think there is little you can do as a medic in most circumstances. Then again, if you spotted him to begin with, chances are he's not a very good spy...

I honestly would never get within melee range of a spy. Facestabs are all too frequent, and a good spy and flickstab your back just as easily.

In the long long ago, when Spies didn't know how to abuse facestabbing, I was more active to get in a Spies face.  But now, every Spy and their grandmother seem to know how to do it, so I recommend keeping distance unless you feel the Spy is not aware of you and you can get a stab on him first (but do not keep stabbing - just swing once, and start backing away and using needles - if you stay to swing more, you risk the Spy facing you and getting a frontstab.

I usually just call out the spy myself.  Then again I am really bad with the SG and saw.