Being a physician requires dedication, character, leadership, creativity, and perseverance. Dr. Monali Manikal exhibits all of these and more. She was born and raised in Bombay, India where she completed her medical school and subsequently immigrated to the U.S.A. She completed her pediatric residency at the Long Island College Hospital – Beth Israel Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.in 2000, specializing in pediatrics and adolescent medicine. Bringing her talents to St. Augustine was an easy choice, as Dr. Manikal and her husband fell in love with it at first sight. She started practicing in 2000 and opened her own practice – Anastasia Pediatrics in 2005.

Dedicated? Dr. Manikal is the epitome of devotion to her community. She has served on the Nutritional Advisory Committee for the St. Johns County School District. She also uses state-of-the-art electronic medical records with “e-prescribing” features, which also provides easy access to their child’s records, which her parents love.

Certainly Dr. Manikal faces medical complexities every day, but she also acknowledges that balancing work as a physician with the responsibilities at home as a wife and mother is a challenge as well. When not at work, she likes to spend time at the beach with her family and travel.

Lauren “Lo” Hendricks was born and raised in Vero Beach, Florida. She then went to Auburn University and rode on the Equestrian Team for two years, earning an SEC championship and SEC honor role. Lauren pursued her nursing degree at Jacksonville University, where she graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors in the Science of Nursing. Lauren did her practicum at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, where she then started working as a registered nurse in the children’s emergency center.

Lauren worked as an RN at Wolfson for over 5 years serving many roles, some of those roles including: floor nurse, charge nurse, triage nurse, and trauma nursing. Lauren continued her education in pediatric primary care and earned her masters in nursing from the University of South Alabama. While completing her master’s, Lauren was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Lauren is certified as a nurse practitioner through the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board. In 2019 Lauren completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice, DNP, from University of South Alabama.

Lauren now lives in St. Augustine with her family. Lauren and her husband enjoy going on medical mission trips and serving those in need and those without access to medical care. They have traveled to Panama, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Uganda on missions through their church.

Lauren loves working with the pediatric patients and strives to promote health and well-being in this population. One of her favorite aspects of being a pediatric nurse practitioner is providing the best possible care to patients and their families through education and health promotion.