As a volunteer EMT in the US, I'm an EMT-B (trauma stabilization treatment, no drugs except oxygen, epinephrine, glucose, self-administer for nerve gas antidote, and patient assist on anything else, MAST and splinting, automated defibrillation only.) Period. I went to the same classes and took the same tests as the paid EMT-Bs (and by "same classes" I mean that there were paid EMT-Bs in the actual classroom with me.) There are volunteer EMT-B, EMT-CC, and EMT-I, all the way up to full medics, and the certification is the same across the board. When you compare the amount of time you spend in class to the amount of time you spend on call, it's hard to make the argument that you're doing anyone any favors by differentiating training. (Especially since we're undifferentiated first responders - you may get me, you may get a county employee, on the same piece of apparatus, on the same dispatch system, etc.) That said, there's actually a pretty limited number of cases where a medic is going to do you more good than an experienced EMT-B. I respect the hell out of our paramedics, but the ultimate point of EMS is to get you in the hands of a real doctor, after all, not to cure you and send you on your way, and there's a small percentage of calls (primarily medical, vs. trauma) where there's a difference. (Even then, the "medic stuff" probably needs to come *after* some basic EMT-B life support stuff that will take up the first 5 - 10 minutes). It just doesn't make good sense to send one medic, let alone 2, on the 90% of emergency calls where they're no different from an EMT. (That's by the way after subtracting the 70% of calls that did not need an ambulance anyway, and I don't even want to think about what Communications filters out before they dispatch us at all.)