The last few years have seen increased pressure on human trafficking, from all sides. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, recently declared the $150 billion illicit crime a “national priority.” In January, the agency released a lengthy report that outlined five key goals to combating trafficking, which victimizes approximately 25 million people around the world, of whom 80 percent are victims of forced labor and 20 percent victims of sex trafficking.
Meanwhile, steps are being taken at the state and local levels, as well. A director of research at West Virginia University is developing an app to train key personnel in rural areas how to identify and report sex trafficking. And now, thanks to a medical student, the Mayo Clinic and other medical schools are beginning to integrate the topic of human trafficking into their curriculum.
Given that up to 88 percent of human trafficking victims encounter a health care professional during their abduction, training for medical professionals is a crucial step. Working with the school, third-year student Jennifer Talbott helped develop a course to train students to identify potential victims of human trafficking and provide them with resources.
“Medical students go into medicine to help patients, and it is our duty to teach them how to identify and provide guidance to victims of trafficking,” said Juliana Kling, M.D., a Mayo Clinic women's health internist and Talbott’s mentor. “The curriculum we are developing will hopefully close this important gap.”
Unfortunately, when she went looking, Talbott found very little public education and resources for medical professionals. According to her study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, only 11 articles geared to the medical community are available online. To make matters worse, the limited resources had a variety of discrepancies in advising how to deal with victims' legal and security issues.
Talbott also found few standardized training resources. To date, only four medical schools have released their curricula specifically for human trafficking training. The study suggests a robust training curriculum “has the potential to fill the remaining training gaps, enabling improved detection and treatment of people who are victims of sex trafficking.”
At the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in Arizona, second-year medical students are now taught the social determinants of health in a clinical setting.
Talbott and the Mayo Clinic Arizona American Medical Women's Association also offer free training for students and other health professionals in Arizona in coordination with the group Physicians Against the Trafficking of Humans. This training includes simulated patient experiences and lectures that are now integrated into the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine curriculum. While this is just the beginning, the training has received positive feedback from other medical students.
“This provides an opportunity for improvement as sex trafficking has become a priority in the public health roadmap,” said Talbott. “Medical schools should review the current published curriculum or consider sharing resources to identify a sex trafficking curriculum that can be incorporated into our existing programs.”