The Mazzoni Center has named a new top doc to oversee LGBTQ health care

The Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia’s largest LGBTQ health agency, has named Stacey Trooskin its new executive medical officer.

Trooskin, an infectious-disease physician, most recently was chief medical officer at Philadelphia FIGHT, a community health nonprofit that operates in the Gayborhood. She will lead Mazzoni’s medical and behavioral health programs, including distribution of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, HIV testing and case management, gender-affirming care, and primary care.

Trooskin said the new position is an opportunity to work with “incredible providers” who have been on the front lines of major public health issues, including last year’s monkeypox outbreak.

“For me, this is an opportunity to try to support them in that work that they’ve been doing,” Trooskin said in an interview.

Trooskin said she wants to use her position to protect access to LGBTQ health care at a time when organizations that serve that community face growing political challenges.

Republican politicians in Pennsylvania and across the country have been fighting to limit health services for transgender individuals. Last year, speakers at a Mazzoni conference were harassed after conservative activists and media personalities shared selective clips of their talks.

“The health care of our community is under siege so I feel a particular calling to do that now,” said Trooskin, who has a gender-expansive child.

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Trooskin said her passion for public health stemmed from volunteer work with the Red Cross in the late 1990s. She accompanied the organization to Mississippi following Hurricane Georges, and helped Philadelphia families rebuild after house fires. The experience made her appreciate how one event can impact the health and wellness of an entire community.

Through her studies for degrees in public health and medicine, Trooskin became an expert in Hepatitis C and the health of people who use drugs.

One of Trooskin’s first goals at Mazzoni is to help the center obtain a Federally Qualified Health Center look-alike status, a government designation for community clinics that provide benefits such as discounts on drugs.

“It will allow the Mazzoni Center to really expand its work to serve and meet community needs in lots of really wonderful, wonderful ways,” she said.