emergency medical technician

respiratory therapist

driver

emergency dispatcher

field supervisor

West Coast Ambulance

West Coast is alright to begin as a new EMT however it’s not so good to stay for long. I’d say observation is a large part if not the major part of learning as an IFT EMT. In facilities you will learn how staff operate and understand how to interact with nurses mainly. Your scope of practice is very small, so much so that regular stretcher crews make approximately the same wage as EMTs. The procedure and protocol for every patient becomes simple very quick and you won’t be doing much of hands-on application of your EMT knowledge. Vital-taking and lifting of patients are the two things you do most of. You’ll soon realize that dispatchers are far from punctual setting up calls and breaks. Often times patients at facilities will not be present and EMT will not know because of poor communication by the company. Your official 30 minute break can fall whenever the dispatch wants it. As for the schedule of work, you won’t know what time you clock in till the day prior; sometime its late night and you don’t know till it’s 9pm. Your partners are not permanent so you’ll always have different partners; from Lancaster you sometimes will have to pickup a partner from Burbank station. The facilities you pickup from will usually be the same ones. 

All ambulance companies will have similar problems with management, scheduling, dispatching, and wages -- West Coast is no different.

There is no on-the-job training, you shadow a crew for 3 days and then get thrown into the field to run calls. They have you watch a 2 hour or so training video on the PCR software and that's it. Management is poorly structured with several people overlapping in duties, making it difficult to get simple requests and questions answered. The owner likes to micromanage and meddle into the affairs of operations, HR (if you can call it that), payroll, and scheduling. 

Aside from the mess that is management, you will absolutely develop close bonds with your fellow EMTs and Respiratory Therapists due to the stressful work environment and malarkey you will endure together. You will learn the ins and outs of how to run every type of call within a few months, especially if you have a good, reliable partner willing to teach you. Overall, there is nothing special about West Coast that you can't find somewhere else. You will be just as miserable as everyone else soon enough.

I primarily worked night shifts here and as a good majority of the people working at westcoast are fun to be around the company communication and dynamics are terrible. They don't really tell you when you work until the day before or for night shift about 12 hrs prior so it's pretty hard to plan what you can do in your off time.
    With 90% of calls during the day being dialysis calls and 5150 calls at night topped by almost all of the dispatchers being unqualified/making terrible time management decisions and acting like they own you makes working here pretty horrible.
    They also expect you to use their online scheduling to request time off but don't use it themselves or tell you what it is/how to use it making even your days off annoying to get if they don't call you asking you to come in every other day you don't work
     That being said there are some pretty great people to work and be with at this company if that out weighs the cons then you will enjoy your time

The “new” management is incompetent and extremely disorganized. They claim they want to ingrain professionalism in the workplace and then have candidates waiting 45min-1hr whether it’s a scheduled interview, training or orientation to begin. Not to mention the outdated and incorrect practices and protocols outlined in their employee handbooks and CEVO quizzes, which they then require you to take and sign. Do not waste your time working here. They neither value nor respect your time. Expect to be interviewed with multiple candidates in the room, making the experience tactless and inappropriate. They have no interest in conducting exit interviews, indicating they have no desire to improve and will continue to operate at the lowest level possible. If you decide to work here, I hope you find management has improved their practices and have a better experience than my coworkers and I did. Overall, extremely disappointed with this company. 

When I first started it was the best place until I hit a year with the company I saw how it really was. the Owner started to get “ way to involved micromanaging everyone” would change your calls from left and right and no one would know what was going on dispatch never Knew either! He would run you to the ground then the second you thought you could breathe ran us again and would schedule you an early shift the next day despite you having a VERY late schedule the day before! Sadly it started to be a drag coming to work employees no longer care becoming rude and careless ambulances are literally falling apart and the owner has an OLD MAN repairing them, if it’s not “Severe” we risk ourselves with a broken ambulance and ill  inspected gurneys. I’ve even heard rumors he’s invading OSHA guidelines. If you wanna be apart of a fraud this company is for you. I’m glad I got out when I did.

This company regularly scheduled me outside of my stated availability and often gave me calls just before the end of my shift, resulting in 2–3 hour holdovers nearly every day.

Unfortunately, my experience with management was overwhelmingly negative. One supervisor stood out as supportive and professional, but overall, leadership felt disorganized and dismissive of concerns.

Training was inconsistent and sometimes contradicted standard procedures, which left many of us unsure of best practices.

Most EMTs I worked with shared similar concerns and advised keeping interactions with certain supervisors to a minimum.

I’ve since moved to another company where communication, respect, and professionalism are the norm — the contrast is striking. If you value your time and well-being, I recommend looking elsewhere.

West Coast Ambulance was a very busy and sometimes chaotic place. As much as tried to organize multiple things for the company, almost every week there was an unpredictable incident that I or someone else needed to take care of, such as missing entries in the system, missing physical files, billing issues, etc. The environment, however, was very friendly, and I understand that the nature of such business is fairly hectic because patient transportation, filling out documents, and sending out reports occurred nearly simultaneously, but I did believe that the company could have been organized better to make the workflow smoother, yet I was a low-tier manager to impact company's strategies for the future development. I feel that I have done a fairly good job juggling multiple tasks to my best capacity to not let the company lag behind.

the most enjoyable part of the job?
The people. Co- workers were always willing to help. Training was actually fun but I think it was mostly because of who I was training with. 

They tried things like "employee of the month" but it seemed to stop after maybe 6 months. We had one park outing where we all got together to play games, eat and hangout but it was only the one time.

the hardest part of the job?
Certain patients were difficult and rude. Some in wheelchairs were difficult to get around when trying to strap down their wheelchair. I had a decent schedule but sometimes when i would cover someones shift I would start at like 3-4am and not what i was used too.

Over all it was a decent job that was fun at times but also had its downsides. I made some friends that I still talk too today

Arrived at work to get on an ambulance and start my day quick and easy after a quick check out of supplies. Worked well with my partner and learned from their routines. The hardest part of the job was hearing of a patients passing after getting to know them on a professional level. The most enjoyable part of this job is meeting and understanding all of your patients needs and being able to help them in their toughest situations.

West Coast Ambulance has a major organization problem. Calls are assigned at end of shifts or several hours late. Several times I've been scolded by Facility staff for being several hours late to calls due to the poor call management. One manager in particular is the worst manager I've ever worked with. Them alone brings the mood down of all other workers.
On top of that different stations recieve different pay terms. One Station will recieve a night differential and the other will not. One station receives more base pay one receives less.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Emergency medical technician 47 salaries reported	$22.99 per hour
Respiratory therapist 7 salaries reported	$35.00 per hour
Driver 8 salaries reported	$17.25 per hour
Emergency dispatcher 6 salaries reported	$19.67 per hour
Field supervisor 7 salaries reported	$30.00 per hour

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