Prosthetics and orthotics is an applied discipline which require students to have a good ability of clinical application. However, the present doctor-patient tension poses great difficulties in students’ clinical practice and study, and thus proposes higher requirements in the talent cultivation. Standardized patients (SP), as a newly established teaching mode, has been applied well in such areas as internal medicine, diagnostics and clinical care for about 20 years in this country. However, in prosthetics and orthotics, we hardly have any SP teaching experience in China. According to the experience of using SP in clinical medicine, this article discusses the necessity of SP in the teaching of prosthetics and orthotics, explains the advantages and disadvantages of SP teaching, and analyzes the feasibility of SP application in the teaching of prosthetics and orthotics under the present situation. Finally, this article concludes that using SP can improve students’ motivation, interest in learning and communication skills with patients. Therefore, it will become a research direction and development trend of prosthetics and orthotics.
