Latest / Rachel Oates / Bonus: Freida McFadden Just Revealed Her Real Identity
Transcript
- 0:00Hey everyone, and welcome back to my second channel.
- 0:01So if you've seen over on my main channel, you will know that
- 0:05I have made a few videos about Freedom McFadden, a thriller
- 0:08author who writes under the pen name Freedom McFadden.
- 0:12And she wants wigs to hide her identity and stuff like that.
- 0:15And she's a pretty terrible thriller author.
- 0:17I'll be honest, I have not been the most complimentary about her
- 0:20work. I think she's a pretty poor
- 0:21author. But one of the things I did a
- 0:23couple of months back was I found all her old blog posts
- 0:25that she wrote just before she kind of became Freedom McFadden,
- 0:30the name Doctor Fizzy or Doctor Mcfizzy.
- 0:32And she used those old blogs to promote her Freda McFadden
- 0:35books. So that was kind of like her
- 0:37private online presence. That was like who she was.
- 0:40But she but she also had a real name that she want to keep
- 0:42hidden because she was a doctor and she does still work part
- 0:45time as a doctor. No one knew her real name until
- 0:48last night. Freda herself revealed it and
- 0:51her name as she now wants the world to know and is Doctor
- 0:56Sarah Eileen Cohen. So obviously me being absolutely
- 1:00fascinated by Freda, I went and gave that name of Google and
- 1:04obviously a lot of stuff came up about who she is, where she
- 1:06works, her history of like her history or education, all of
- 1:10that. This stuff we kind of knew from
- 1:11her blog posts anyway. But now there's, you know, a
- 1:14name to the information. Now there's a face to the
- 1:17information. Like there's old photos of her
- 1:19online with her, you know, naturally curly hair and so on,
- 1:23and, you know, not hiding behind the wigs or anything like that.
- 1:27And one of the other things I found that I found really
- 1:28interesting, which is just what I want to briefly talk about in
- 1:30this video. It's not an in depth thing or
- 1:32anything like that. But I actually found that she
- 1:34wrote a lot of posts kind of opinion pieces and stuff for a
- 1:39medical website for medical students under her real name,
- 1:42Doctor Sarah Cohen. And I actually found this
- 1:45because of one of her posts titled What is PMNR, which was
- 1:50very, very similar to a blog post she wrote on her doctor
- 1:54Fizzy Freedom McFadden, private blogs also about like what is PM
- 1:59and RPM. And R is the field that she
- 2:00works in, which is physical medicine and rehabilitation.
- 2:04This is the area that Freda Sara works in and has worked in the
- 2:08last decade or so. And she started off writing her
- 2:13blogs as a kind of medical student and an intern and a
- 2:16fellow and whatever. And then she went into research
- 2:18for a bit and then she eventually went into
- 2:20specialising in PM and R. And I just think it's really,
- 2:24really fascinating because the way she wrote about PM and R as
- 2:28Sarah Cohen, her, her real personality, her real
- 2:32personality, her real identity tied to her medical career and
- 2:37the one that, you know, would be Googled when she applied for
- 2:38jobs and stuff was very different to how she wrote about
- 2:41PM and R on her private blogs that didn't have her real name
- 2:44attached. And and there were there were a
- 2:47few differences. So in this art, this article,
- 2:50for example, written as Sarah Cohen in October 2009, she did
- 2:54make a few of the same jokes as she made in her private blogs.
- 2:58So here she said, you know, a colleague of her, Pete, said
- 3:02that she should work as a physiatrist or a yeah, a
- 3:07physiatrist. I think that's how you pronounce
- 3:08it. And that's a specialist in PM
- 3:10and R What does PM and R stand for, I ask.
- 3:13Plenty of money and relaxation, another fourth year quipped.
- 3:16And she made that exact joke on her private blogs as well.
- 3:19One of the big differences is in her posts as Sarah Cohen, she
- 3:24goes into here's the history of PM and R, here's what it
- 3:27entails. And here's why it's really good
- 3:29because you're helping people in this way, in this way, and
- 3:31here's why you're doing this. Whereas in her private blog, she
- 3:34was more like, oh, PMR is really PM and R is really good because
- 3:37like, I barely have to work any hours and I don't have to get up
- 3:40early and I don't have to do this.
- 3:41And I earn lots of money on this, this, this and this.
- 3:44And I found that really, really fascinating.
- 3:46How when it was attached to her real name, she presented it one
- 3:49way and when she could say it in private, she presented it in
- 3:51another. And I think, I think that's kind
- 3:54of true with everyone to some degree.
- 3:56Like we all present different versions of ourselves in
- 3:58different ways. And, and I don't begrudge her
- 4:01that. Again, I just find it
- 4:02fascinating. And there are other things
- 4:05though, that I found like weird little discrepancies.
- 4:06Like on her private blog, she complained about how she gets
- 4:10mad when people say doctors make a lot of money because she
- 4:12barely scrapes by and she doesn't make any money and she
- 4:14does this and this and she doesn't earn as much as people
- 4:16would think. Whereas in her blog post, and
- 4:19there's Sarah Cohen, when she was writing for other doctors
- 4:22and other medical professionals, she was talking about how in PM
- 4:25and R and the median salary for physiatrists after one to two
- 4:30years in practise is $213,000. For those who have done a one
- 4:35year fellowship, the salary is quite a bit more.
- 4:38So on the one hand, in private she's talking about how she
- 4:41doesn't earn enough money and it's barely anything and she
- 4:43needs more and blah blah blah. But then in a professional
- 4:47setting, she's talking about how her field earns a median of
- 4:52200,000 a year, if not considerably more.
- 4:55I found that quite shocking. She wrote plenty of other posts
- 4:59too. And I, I did check by the way,
- 5:02this because there's a few Sarah Cohens out there, but there's
- 5:06only one Sarah Eileen Cohen, who is Freda McFadden.
- 5:09And I checked because like same face and everything.
- 5:12There's like pictures on her account and same specialty
- 5:16field, same educational history and stuff like that.
- 5:19So it is her and there's there's other posts she wrote about like
- 5:23will a negative evaluation ruin my residency options?
- 5:26And she wrote like a really nice levelled response to that
- 5:29question and why pick PM and R, Good work life balance, good
- 5:35compensation, versatility in practise, interesting
- 5:39perspective in pain management and so on.
- 5:41Like she seems a lot. I know it sounds so stupid.
- 5:45Like, of course, in a professional setting, she's more
- 5:47professional than in her private blogs, but even her writing
- 5:52style is different. And I wonder if that's because
- 5:53she had an editor here, here her posts are coherent and well
- 5:57thought out with subheadings and like, proper paragraphs and
- 6:01stuff. Whereas on a private blog, it
- 6:03was more like she spent a lot of time calling people bitches and
- 6:07being quite nasty about her colleagues and just complaining
- 6:10that like, you know, she worked too many hours and she didn't
- 6:13earn enough money and there was all this stuff.
- 6:14And yeah, I found it very, very interesting the difference.
- 6:19There were also things as well that I found really interesting.
- 6:22Just little things like she wrote this post about new
- 6:25advances in traumatic brain injury.
- 6:27And it turns out she has a background in working in
- 6:30traumatic brain injury before she was in.
- 6:32I don't know if it was before she was in PM and R or
- 6:34afterwards and like during, but she wrote one article or like Co
- 6:40wrote it on anoxic brain injury. And I found that really
- 6:43interesting because in her book Dear Debbie that I just reviewed
- 6:46on my channel and one of the kind of side characters is
- 6:51mentioned, he's in a coma because he tried to hang himself
- 6:54and he got an anoxic brain injury.
- 6:56And I just found it really fascinating how those little
- 6:59things kept coming up and there seemed same details kept coming
- 7:01back. And I'm like, God, Freda really
- 7:03does write from her life and keeps coming back to these
- 7:06things. Like she said on her private
- 7:08blogs as Doctor Fizzy Freda McFadden.
- 7:11She said like how some of her earlier books were like actual
- 7:15self inserts and about her time as an intern and this person she
- 7:18had was a supervisor and she made them characters into the
- 7:21books. And she spoke about how, oh,
- 7:23there's another book and this is a self insert because of this.
- 7:25This one's almost embarrassingly a self insert.
- 7:28And then to see like her actual published work in medicine
- 7:33containing the same themes and injuries and stuff as her
- 7:38published novels, again, I found that kind of kind of
- 7:41interesting, kind of fascinating.
- 7:42I will say though, in reading quite a lot of these posts, it
- 7:45is nice to see that she is actually, and I don't want to
- 7:50sound nasty and she is knowledgeable in these fields
- 7:53that she's writing about and talking about.
- 7:54Like her science seems pretty on the point, like it seems pretty
- 7:58spawn. She knows what she's talking
- 7:59about and she talks about like New Times.
- 8:02She talks about new kinds of treatments and therapies and why
- 8:05people get certain injuries and so on.
- 8:06And it like, I mean, I only did biomedic uni, so I'm not like an
- 8:11expert. I'm not a doctor myself.
- 8:12I can't, like, claim to have the level of expertise that Freda
- 8:16slash Sarah does, obviously. But I mean, reading it as
- 8:19someone with a modicum of knowledge, like, yeah, she knows
- 8:23what she's talking about, which is interesting because so many
- 8:25people have said that she makes so many mistakes in her books.
- 8:29And so for example, when I reviewed Ward, DI pointed out,
- 8:33and so many of my commenters pointed out how she was making
- 8:35so many errors about like, you know, there's no way a
- 8:38psychiatric ward would be set up this way.
- 8:39There's no way a doctor would behave this way.
- 8:41There's no way a nurse would behave this way.
- 8:43There's no way an intern would behave this way.
- 8:45There's no way this would happen.
- 8:46This medicine wouldn't be given this one.
- 8:48And there were lots, lots and lots of medical inaccuracies.
- 8:50And people will point these out and being like, wait, is she
- 8:52even a doctor? So it's quite refreshing to see
- 8:55that she can write proper quality medical information and
- 8:59like write these posts that are genuinely really helpful and
- 9:05really informative. You know, absolutely.
- 9:08That said, I'm aware that these posts themselves, because of the
- 9:14website they're on, probably have gone through quite a strict
- 9:18editing process and a fact checking process, so there's a
- 9:22chance that not all of this is just her work and information.
- 9:25But still, it's nice to see that she does have that knowledge
- 9:29that a lot of people were doubting.
- 9:31Again though, I did find a few comparisons between her personal
- 9:37her personal blog and her public posts as Sarah Cohen.
- 9:42So for example, in When was This November 2010, she wrote a post
- 9:47in response to a question saying How do you deal with a classmate
- 9:50who is a gunner? It is something is it something
- 9:52I even need to worry about? And the way she describes a
- 9:55gunner is it refers to an especially competitive medical
- 9:59student. Every medical school class has
- 10:01at least one gunner, and usually many more than that.
- 10:04Some people use the term to refer to students who study much
- 10:08more than average and are especially concerned with
- 10:10grades. However, the term may also be
- 10:12used to refer to medical students who exhibit behaviour
- 10:15that is either borderline unethical or even blatant
- 10:17blatant cheat or even blatant cheating.
- 10:21Now she gives some really good advice in this post about how to
- 10:23deal with about how to deal with classmates and colleagues who
- 10:26are like this. Saying things like if a gunner
- 10:30is making you feel unprepared or making it difficult for you to
- 10:32learn, the easiest approach is to avoid him or her in an
- 10:35academic setting. Another strategy is to set is to
- 10:39set a good example. If you share your study
- 10:41materials with the class, it will encourage others to do the
- 10:43same and so on. It's a really, really well
- 10:48thought out, reasonable post about a genuine concern.
- 10:51And I was like, this is fantastic.
- 10:53And then I realised I'd read something very similar on her
- 10:57private blog, except she hadn't referred to them as Gunners,
- 11:02she'd preferred to and the woman as as I think it was like a
- 11:07weirdo or something like that. And I'll pop the post on screen
- 11:10that I'm referring to, but basically she was complaining
- 11:13that she had a colleague who was very, very, very attractive and
- 11:18she kind of felt intimidated by how attractive she was.
- 11:20But she also found her a bit weird and annoying.
- 11:22And one day she had two male colleagues talking about this
- 11:25other colleague and said that she was really weird and really
- 11:28annoying and they didn't like her because sometimes she
- 11:31stepped in and was quite competitive and answered
- 11:33questions for other people. Like the same, the same thing
- 11:35was being spoke about in that blog post.
- 11:37And then Frida went on about how like how she was so happy that
- 11:40these men were judging this woman and talking about her
- 11:42behind her back and how she was a bit of a weirdo and all this
- 11:44stuff, and she was just very, very nasty about her.
- 11:48So again, I found it very interesting to see the same
- 11:51subject approached in two very, very different ways between Sara
- 11:56and Frida. You know, I mean, even though
- 11:58it's the same person with the same experiences, I found that
- 12:01very interesting. But yeah, I don't want to go too
- 12:04in depth with this video. I just thought it was something
- 12:05interesting or worth pointing out because, yeah, Freda or Sara
- 12:09is a character, a character. She's a person who has put this
- 12:12character forward. And it fascinates me.
- 12:14It really, really does. So when I made my video about
- 12:19Freda's blog posts, I create a little document for you all.
- 12:21You could go through and read the blogs.
- 12:23You could read the post from her various blogs at your own
- 12:26leisure if you want it because of fortunate to cover in a
- 12:28video. So if you guys are interested,
- 12:30I'm going to add the post she's written as Sarah Cohen herself,
- 12:36you know, medical doctor. I'm going to add them to that
- 12:39document so you can read them for yourself and kind of see the
- 12:41differences and draw the comparisons yourself if you're
- 12:44interested. And so I'll leave that link down
- 12:46below and I'll also update the link on my original Freda blog
- 12:50post videos so you can see them over there as well.
- 12:53But yeah, I find this quite fascinating.
- 12:55The last thing that kind of address is that there is a
- 12:57rumour out there that, and I don't know how substantiated
- 12:59this is, is that Frida only came out and made her name public now
- 13:04because another outlet was threatening to make it public
- 13:06and she kind of wanted to get out there first.
- 13:07I don't know how true this is, but I do think kind of people
- 13:12like she does deserve her privacy and that's why like I'm
- 13:14not talking about things like, because online it makes very
- 13:16clear things like her address, where she works and what
- 13:18building she works and stuff. I'm not obviously going to say
- 13:21that online because I don't think that's fair to release
- 13:23that to anyone even though it is as public now.
- 13:25But like I don't want to be spreading it.
- 13:28But yeah, I think, you know, things like reading some public
- 13:31articles and posts, that's a different thing.
- 13:35But yeah, I just, I hope that's not true and I hope she's come
- 13:39forward with her identity now because she wanted to, not
- 13:41because she had to. But as she she has spoken about
- 13:45it, I thought, yeah, it's kind of worth, worth thinking about.
- 13:48And it's interesting. And yeah, I don't know.
- 13:52I just, I feel like I've fallen down a little bit of a rabbit
- 13:55hole with Frieda McFadden. I just keep finding more and
- 13:57more stuff about her or Sarah Cohen as she is.
- 14:01And yeah, wild. Anyway, let me know your
- 14:03thoughts on this. And if you go and read her blog
- 14:04posts in full that I'm linking below, let me know your thoughts
- 14:07on them as well. But yeah, thank you for watching
- 14:10today and I'll see you again soon.
- 14:12So I've got to go check out my main channel if you want to see
- 14:14my video on Freda's blogs and my reviews of the teacher, Wardy
- 14:18and dear Debbie, I'll also link them below in this video for
- 14:21you. But for now, thank you for
- 14:22watching. I'll see you again soon.
- 14:23Bye.