NC doctor's fashionable way to connect with ALS patients featured in documentary film
DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- How many doctors do you know who ditch their white coats for high fashion? How many doctors do you know who believe "hope" should be taught in medical school?
That doctor is right here in our area and is now the focus of a documentary short film called "Stitching Strength."
Meet Dr. Richard Bedlack, Neurologist and Director of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) program at Duke. He not only doesn't dress like a doctor, but he also wears high fashion from many well-known designers. It's not only because he loves fashion, but he sees it as a fashionable way to connect with his patients.
"I've always felt it's kind of like putting on a suit of armor," Bedlack says.
He doesn't act like your typical doctor, either. He not only treats patients at Duke, but he also travels the world to treat his patients in their environment.
"When I get out there and I see their lives, I feel like I can be a better doctor to them. I can be a better hope booster for them."
It is the reason Bedlack is so sought after and beloved, and precisely why a documentary film crew followed Bedlack for a year. They not only followed Bedlack in treating patients but also attended speaking engagements, spreading "his" message of hope.
Every time I see it, I still get the goosebumps.Dr. Richard Bedlack
More than just hope
"Hope is not just waking up with a smile on your face," Bedlack explains," That's optimism. Optimism is nice, but it doesn't get you very far. Hope is optimism and agency. It means being able to define goals, pathways and motivations for going down those pathways and that's why I believe hope is not just an emotion, it's actually a treatment."
In the documentary, one of Bedlack's patients, who speaks through a computer, says this about ALS.
"It is a death sentence. Not a lot to be seemingly hopeful for, right? And yet hope finds a way to muscle its way in."
"If we look across every disease where it's been studied," Bedlack says, "people with more of it (hope) to do better medically. They have lower symptom burden. They're less likely to be hospitalized. They live longer compared to people with less hope."
Generous funding from outside Duke enables Bedlack to use his unconventional approach, and there is real progress.
"Just last month," Bedlack continues," I got roughly $300,000 in donations from different families who are fascinated by some of the things I'm working on right now. That's going to allow me to spend time working on projects that are really out there."
Not in time, though, for some of Bedlack's ALS patients, especially those featured in his 38-minute film.
"Honest to God," Bedlack says about the movie, "Every time I see it, I still get the goosebumps, and I still tear up, and part of it is just some of the people that are in the film are not with us anymore.
When I'm lying on my deathbed and if I look back and say this was my legacy, to be positive, to bring joy, to bring hope, to help people see that they are more than their motor neurons, that's a pretty good legacy. I still hope I can find a cure for ALS, but if I don't, that'll be enough."
The next screening of "Stitching Strength" is Thursday, Nov. 13th, at The Cary Theatre.
Click on 'Stitching Strength' to get more information.
