Long-distance Legacy
Bergestuen family’s cancer battle leads to lasting benefit for medical students
A runner and outdoors enthusiast, Trond Bergestuen, Ph.D., has always loved long distances. So, it’s fitting that the Norwegian married a doctor who hailed from the plains of West Texas. More fitting, still, is that the couple met in Spain, while attending the University of Santiago de Compostela, located in a city at the finish line of a 500-mile medieval pilgrimage route.
The woman he fell in love with was Deidi Strickland Bergestuen, M.D., Ph.D., a natural-born leader from Plainview, Texas, who was drum major of her high school band and valedictorian of her class. She graduated summa cum laude from Texas A&M University and attended medical school at UT Southwestern Medical Center. After graduation, Dr. Deidi Bergestuen completed the first two years of an internal medicine residency at UT Southwestern before marrying Dr. Trond Bergestuen and moving to Syracuse, New York. There, she completed her residency at State University of New York, where she also served as Chief Resident.
In 2001, the Bergestuens moved to Oslo, Norway, where Dr. Deidi Bergestuen worked as an attending physician and research fellow at Oslo University Hospital and completed a Ph.D. in gastroenterology. Along the way, the couple had two daughters.
In 2011, Dr. Deidi Bergestuen, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. The family moved back to the United States, where she received excellent care at UT Southwestern and the University of Colorado. In 2015, she finished a fellowship in gastroenterology at UT Southwestern before being hired as Director of the Clinical Skills Program at the Texas Christian University & University of North Texas Health Science Center Medical School at Fort Worth.
Steadfast in her Christian faith until her cancer battle came to an end, she died in 2020. To honor her memory, her medical school classmates established the Deidi Strickland Bergestuen Class of 1994 Scholarship to be awarded to deserving medical school students. With contributions from classmates, colleagues, and the Bergestuen and Strickland families, the scholarship endowment reached its $20,000 goal, creating a permanent tribute to Dr. Deidi Bergestuen and a perpetual impact on future UT Southwestern students.
Unfortunately, her fight with cancer wasn’t the family’s only battle with the disease.
“The funeral for my wife was on July 24, and I was diagnosed with bladder cancer just a month later,” Dr. Trond Bergestuen said. “That was quite a shock.”
Following a couple of months of chemotherapy at UT Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at Moncrief Cancer Institute in Fort Worth, Trond underwent surgery at UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital to remove his bladder and prostate. Since his surgery, all of his scans have been normal, and he is now cancer-free.
After a lengthy rehab, he has once again returned to running his favorite trails. He has completed several 5K races following his recovery and is looking forward to running longer distances again.
This summer, he plans to get a few more miles under his belt – this time hiking in the Norwegian mountains.
"Spending summers in the mountains with my daughters is something dear to my heart, and I so look forward to that again."
