Do You Remember?

Although McFadden has written nearly two dozen novels as of 2025, many of them bestsellers, she uses a nom de plume because she prefers to keep her real-life identity a secret. The author’s pseudonym is based on “the acronym for the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database, which helps medical students to find hospital placements” (Pavia, Will. “Meet ‘Freida Mcfadden’, the Doctor Hiding Her Secret Life as a Bestselling Author.” The Times, 12 Mar. 2025). Thus, she doesn’t share with her colleagues that she spends her days off writing, and she never attends book signings or conferences. In a 2022 article, she wrote:

I’m a physician and I do not want my patients to know. Would most people be cool with their doctor writing psychological thrillers? Sure, probably […]. Then again, I have to say, I don’t know how I would feel if I knew my physician wrote a book in which a surgeon’s patients are systematically murdered (“My Double Life by Freida McFadden.” Women Writers Women Books, 26 Apr. 2022).

McFadden feels that she can always choose to tell people about her secret life, but she can never put the cat back in the bag.