Florida Orthopaedic Associates

by Jill Cousins

At Florida Orthopaedic Associates in Lake Mary, every day is Take Your Daughter to Work Day for orthopaedic surgeon Stephen Reed, M.D., and certified physician assistant Ashley Reed Manresa.

The father-and-daughter team has been working together since Ashley graduated from P.A. school in 2008, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When I graduated, the practice needed some extra help,” says Ashley, a Lake Mary High School graduate who lives in Lake Mary with her husband and two daughters. “I thought, well, I’m coming out of school, let me get my feet wet and see how I like orthopaedics. So I joined up here and loved it and never left.”

Dr. Reed couldn’t be happier to have his daughter by his side.

“As a dad, I’m very proud, and it’s very gratifying,” says Dr. Reed, who moved to Lake Mary in 1986 after completing his residency and internship in Columbia, South Carolina, when Ashley was two years old. “Our personalities mesh together quite well. She’s an extension of me, and that’s good. The patients love her.”

When it was time to complete her rotations in college, Ashley – on the advice of her father – specifically chose fields outside of orthopaedics so that she would have a well-rounded medical background. Dr. Reed was more than happy to teach her all about orthopaedics once she joined the practice.

“I had her shadow me pretty closely for three months or so,” Dr. Reed says. “I taught her orthopaedics, and the rest is history.”

Ashley used to accompany her dad on his hospital rounds when she was a little girl, helping him find charts for his patients (and enjoying some hospital snacks, as well). Now she assists Dr. Reed in the operating room, and without him saying a word, she knows everything he needs during surgery.

“This was one of those things, when you go into it, you never quite know how it will work out,” Ashley says. “You just give it a go and see how we do, and luckily, it’s gone really, really well.”