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In This Issue:
Hanni Stoklosa
Hanni Stoklosa, MD, knows that building trust is a key tenet of providing compassionate care. This is especially crucial when it comes to a special group of patients she sees and cares for: victims of human trafficking.
Stoklosa, a BWH Connors Center Global Women's Health fellow and recent graduate of the BWH/MGH Emergency Medicine residency, has been interested in gender-based violence for as long as she can remember. Working with exploited, marginalized groups drew her attention to the issue, as well as to medicine in general. She first heard about human trafficking as a medical student during a conference and was floored to discover it was occurring in the U.S.
"When I learned it was happening even in Boston, it became an extremely compelling issue to me," she said. "I realized I was probably seeing and caring for human trafficking victims in the Emergency Department without recognizing them as such. I knew that I needed to help our health systems learn to respond to these victims on all levels, including detection."
Last month, Stoklosa was invited to attend a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) meeting in Washington, D.C., on health system responses and services for victims of human trafficking. The meeting was an opportunity for medical and health professionals, care providers, advocates and researchers to come together to examine available training for health providers to recognize signs of human trafficking and discuss ways to provide additional support to victims. The Administration for Children and Families, with support from the DHHS's Office of Women's Health, hopes to work with federal partners to develop a pilot project that will educate health care providers about human trafficking and strengthen their capacity to identify and assist victims.
"The invitation is a tremendous honor and recognition of Dr. Stoklosa's leadership in this greatly underserved area," said Ron Walls, MD, chair of Emergency Medicine. "She is dedicating her academic career to human trafficking and stepping forward as an advocate for a largely invisible, unspeakably exploited population."
Stoklosa is both excited and honored to participate.
"I'm hopeful it will bring us one step closer to integrating human trafficking care into medical education," she said. "Victims present in many clinical settings-emergency medicine, OB/GYN, primary and urgent care. Our health systems need to develop frameworks to care for this highly vulnerable population."
As a way to connect people doing this work, Stoklosa founded the international organization HEAL Trafficking, which brings together social workers, physicians, nurses, psychologists, counselors, public health workers and others across North America to share resources and best practices.
"There's a hunger among those working in the field for better networking and communication channels," Stoklosa said. "It's amazing what today's technology can do to connect us and facilitate this work."
To learn more, visit HEALtrafficking.org.