Health care and mental health in Tampa Bay region

Sam Ogozalek

Sam Ogozalek is a health care reporter focusing on mental health for the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Previously, he covered COVID-19 and local government for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina. Hailing from Hancock, New York, a small town along the Delaware River, Ogozalek was editor-in-chief of Syracuse University’s student paper, The Daily Orange, and has interned at the Tampa Bay Times, The Buffalo News and the Naples Daily News.

Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times is the largest newspaper in Florida, with an award-winning history of investigative, narrative and enterprise journalism. We have 126 journalists covering three counties and the state of Florida. That includes 63 reporters and 25 editors. Ambition runs deep. In the past six months, our reporters uncovered an intelligence-based policing program in nearby Pasco County meant to stop crime before it happened. As the pandemic took hold, we built a Scrapbook to capture what was happening to people’s lives, organizing dozens of contributions from readers. And we're two years into an astonishing story about black cemeteries across the Tampa Bay area that time and development forgot. The ownership structure is unique in journalism. The visionary owner, Nelson Poynter, bequeathed the newspaper to a school for journalists here in St. Petersburg, now known as the Poynter Institute, to protect our independence.

Rose Wong

Rose Wong covers health care and mental health for the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. She interned for the paper in 2020, where she reported on breaking news, COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and the pandemic's impact on service workers. As a cancer survivor, Wong has seen firsthand the complexities of life as a patient in the American health care system, thereby developing an interest in contributing clarity and justice through health journalism. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Duke University, where she was senior editor of The Chronicle, the student-run media organization. Her investigative series exposing a pattern of misdiagnoses and inadequate care within Duke Student Health earned her the Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Journalism's top honor, and her reporting became part of a national college health story published by The Washington Post. Home for Wong is Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times is the largest newspaper in Florida, with an award-winning history of investigative, narrative and enterprise journalism. We have 126 journalists covering three counties and the state of Florida. That includes 63 reporters and 25 editors. Ambition runs deep. In the past six months, our reporters uncovered an intelligence-based policing program in nearby Pasco County meant to stop crime before it happened. As the pandemic took hold, we built a Scrapbook to capture what was happening to people’s lives, organizing dozens of contributions from readers. And we're two years into an astonishing story about black cemeteries across the Tampa Bay area that time and development forgot. The ownership structure is unique in journalism. The visionary owner, Nelson Poynter, bequeathed the newspaper to a school for journalists here in St. Petersburg, now known as the Poynter Institute, to protect our independence.