Dr Ashley Ng

Another year, another website change or two (sorry for ever leaving you WordPress!). As 2023 draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the year that’s gone and pen a few goals for the year ahead.

Personal Highlights

• Closed the door on my last lot of maternity leave. Knowing that I’m done with having kids is bittersweet. Especially the realisation that all her firsts will be my lasts. I will always be grateful for the luxury of being able to spend this time with my two babies. In many ways, finishing up my maternity leave marks the start of a new chapter in my life.
• As I transitioned back into work, I slowly built up my exercise routine. My aim is to get to the gym or a pilates class 3-4 times a week. Often I try to fit this in before the kids wake up or during my lunch break if I’m working from home. This is an achievement I feel especially proud of as it’s me putting my physical and mental health as a priority; something I haven’t really stuck to in the past few years.
• As part of World Diabetes Day celebrations this year, I received the Outstanding Contribution Award (Lived Experience) from Diabetes Victoria. Considering the accolades from past recipients, I feel so humbled and honoured to be on this honour roll. My workplace did a lovely write up about the award and what it means to me here.

Career Highlights

• Speaking of workplaces, I ended my maternity leave by starting in a project management/research fellow at Monash Partners and Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation. My role involves managing a two year research project on developing a digital knowledge hub on consumer and community involvement and undertaking the research behind understanding the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of stakeholders when it comes to consumer and community involvement. I am absolutely loving the team I’m working with, the constant learning the research brings and the rewarding feeling from value of what we’re producing brings. Being in this role has reminded me how much I love research and I’m excited at the opportunities the future brings.
• Since I’m only at Monash four days a week, I decided to take on some additional work with University of Technology Sydney to manage several small internal diabetes related research projects as well as some work with their Graduate Certificate of Diabetes Education and Management. Another amazing teaching and research team I feel incredibly lucky and proud to be a part of. Being part of this team also led to a Diabetes Australia Research Program grant being awarded for our project on helping healthcare professionals develop empathy towards people with diabetes. Our teaching team also received the University of Technology Sydney Teaching and Learning Academic Support Award, for our work to support Indigenous students in the Grad Cert of Diabetes Education and Management course, hence also increasing the diabetes workforce in the Indigenous health space.
• While in my second year as the clinicial co-chair of the Australian Diabetes Educators Association Program Organising Committee for the Australasian Diabetes Congress, this was my first year attending in person since COVID (and not organising the conference in a post partum haze). I’m so proud of the program we managed to put together and the way our program organising committee got together to make sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. Now we’re working hard on making the program and experiences for diabetes educators better than ever for 2024 in Perth.

Looking ahead towards 2024, I’m bracing myself for a huge year to come. Now that we’ve got a bit of routine down with the kiddos, I’m taking this opportunity to catch up on my career goals. While I haven’t got clear goals for the year set out just yet, here are the things that I need to sit down and work out:

• Am I stretching myself out too thinly across key advocacy projects that I’m currently a part of? Perhaps it’s time to let some go and focus on doing a few things really well rather than being part of many things.
• Develop my research plan for the next five years, with some key research output goals for 2024.
• My insulin pump is now out of warranty and I’ve been putting off singing another 4 year deal until I’m certain of what I would like to get out from my diabetes care.
• What is my purpose for wanting to start a podcast (that I’ve been talking about for the past two years)? Is 2024 finally the year to get that going?

I am truly excited for the opportunities that 2024 will bring. I know it’s going to be a hard slog ahead. Thankfully I’m surrounded by amazing people who I can rely on to support and guide me along the way. May 2024 bring you some exciting new adventures as well!