Trafficking in Medical Education: The TIME is Now

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and Walk Free Foundation, there are an estimated 24.9 million individuals enslaved by human trafficking practices around the world. The United States government predicts that 600,000-800,000 new individuals are trafficked across international borders each year, earning criminal organizations approximately $150 billion annually. The physical and mental health impacts of human trafficking have been well documented by previous research. It is common for human trafficking victims to come into contact with healthcare providers during all phases of their victimization. This puts healthcare workers in a unique position to identify human trafficking victims and practice informed care when dealing with victims of human trafficking. Trafficking in Medical Education (TIME) is a non-profit organization that seeks to help eliminate human trafficking by the 2050 through educating the healthcare workforce. To do this, with the help of UnBound, we have held training sessions with up-to-date research on intervention strategies to 500 medical students across Texas since 2018. We seek to continue such training until we are able to reach all Texas medical schools yearly. We have also reached out to local, regional, and state government representatives in an effort to expand our educational efforts across undergraduate medical education. We plan to design two research initiatives to assess current human trafficking education in osteopathic medical students through surveying Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents' (COSGP) representatives from each school and emergency medical technicians through Agency & Regional Medical Directors.