Abstract: From the angle of institutional learning, this article discusses the development of medical social work in China It holds that the social transition of China creats an institutional space for the development of medical social work. As a process of institutional learning, the development of medical social work needs considering some notable characters such as the relationship between internal growth and external adoption, distribution of attention, etc. Medical social work is actually a kind of institutional arrangement as well as a discipline which needs professionalization and normalization in the near future.