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Kraena Pre-Health
Career Library

Technical & Diagnostic

Orthotist and Prosthetist (O&P)

Designs and builds artificial limbs and braces — engineering you can watch someone walk out on.

Years after high school

7

Degree

Master's degree

Entrance exam

Program-specific

Median pay

$81,110 national median for orthotists and prosthetists (BLS, May 2025).

What the job is actually like

Casting and scanning limbs, designing devices, fabricating or overseeing fabrication, then fitting and adjusting — often over many appointments as a patient's residual limb changes. Part clinic, part workshop.

The path

  1. 014 year bachelor's degree with science coursework
  2. 022 year master's in orthotics and prosthetics
  3. 03Residency, typically 1 year per discipline
  4. 04ABC board certification

Good fit if

  • You want to make physical things that change someone's life
  • You like the meeting point of engineering and medicine
  • You want high autonomy and predictable hours

Think twice if

  • You cannot relocate — there are very few accredited programs nationally
  • You want broad career flexibility later
  • Workshop and fabrication work does not appeal

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All salary figures here are median annual wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 — the most recent full national dataset. 'Median' means half of workers earn more and half earn less. Three things to keep in mind: (1) pay varies enormously by state, city, setting, and experience — a nurse in California and a nurse in rural Alabama earn very different salaries; (2) training lengths are typical, not guaranteed, and programs differ; (3) these numbers change every year. Always verify current figures at bls.gov/ooh before making a decision. For context, the BLS median wage for all U.S. occupations was $50,980, while healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a median of $86,530 — one of the reasons health care is such a stable field.