Effectiveness of an 8-week Curriculum in Changing Medical Student Self-assessment of Knowledge and Confidence toward Sex Trafficking

ABSTRACT

Although trafficked persons frequently present to healthcare systems, physicians and physician trainees often lack training on identification and care of this patient population. Currently, there is no mandatory or standard training on human trafficking during one’s medical education. A pilot 8-week curriculum focusing on sex trafficking, designed and implemented at a regional medical school, aims to provide medical students with the appropriate information and training to understand the complexity of sex trafficking, and enhance their role as members of the healthcare team in combating this issue. Self-assessments of the participants’ attitudes and knowledge prior to and after taking the curriculum showed a level of increased knowledge and confidence in identifying and managing trafficked individuals presenting in the healthcare setting. Findings support the implementation of such a curriculum, and its benefits to counter trafficking through early medical education. The practical contribution of this article is laying the groundwork for a sex trafficking curriculum implemented into medical education, in an effort to counter the issue of human trafficking by destigmatizing and providing knowledge to medical students.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex trafficking
• human trafficking
• curriculum
• education
• medical students
• identification
• treatment
• referral
• trafficked persons

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the invaluable contributions and assistance of Kristin Murray, the executive director of Voice of Hope, in the creation of this curriculum and in her role as a speaker. We also thank Kristin Murray for her compassion in medical student education, for being a liaison in inviting other guest speakers, and for her care of trafficked persons. We thank Voice of Hope for gifting each student Julia Walsh’s book, Surviving “the Life,” How I Overcame Sex Trafficking. We thank Jaime Wheeler and Open Door survivor housing team, Dr. Wakefield, Dr. Christopher Piel, District Attorney Sunshine Stanek, Prosecutors Mandi Say, Prosecutor Traci Wisely, Police Detective Billy Mitchell, and Judge Kara Darnell for their role in combating trafficking and for volunteering their time as speakers for the curriculum. We especially thank Dr. McMahon, Dr. Patti Patterson, Dr. Steven Berk, and Dr. Simon Williams with the School of Medicine for their support and guidance. We thank the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine for making this curriculum a possibility. We thank the Clinical Research Institute and the Writing Center for their service. We thank our medical students for their passion and input.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The school of medicine provided free lunch for the medical students for their attendance to ensure that the students have an opportunity to eat lunch during the lunch hour speaker session that is scheduled in between their core curriculum lectures. The study was under the auspices of the Department of Psychiatry.