The Spokane Falls Community College Orthotic and Prosthetic Technology program has expanded its cohort size to help address the shortage of O&P technicians. This year’s 11-student cohort is up from three when Ambrose Cavegn, BOCP, CPA, CTPO, program director, restructured the course in 2024 to combine the orthotic and prosthetic technology programs into a single one-year course.
“We decided that the one-year program was more beneficial to get students out into the workforce quicker to meet demand,” he told the Spokane Journal of Business. “It’s hard for the educational portion of our field to keep up with the times, and with all the new technologies, materials, and capabilities that we have, this industry changes really, really fast,” he said. “Any student that graduates this program that wants a job will be able to get one. There’s a growing need for formally educated technicians, and I think that the importance of their job and their scope have grown.”
