25-02-2025
Meet the SC doctor who will be a contestant on the new season of ‘Survivor'
Cedrek McFadden was involved in just about every academic pursuit when he was a student at Richland Northeast High School in the 1990s.
Senior class president, track, chorus, theater.
That drive was a precursor to his chosen career as a colon and rectal surgeon as well as a national television commentator on medical issues and a clinical professor.
Now he's adding another accomplishment: participant in this season's 'Survivor' television show, which premieres at 8 p.m. Wednesday on CBS.
He and 17 other contestants vie for $1 million while 'grappling with food deprivation, exposure to the elements and layered social politics,' the show's web page says.
Filmed over 26 days in the Mamanuca Islands, Fiji, the show also includes teachers, an attorney, two firefighters, a pizza restaurant owner and stunt performer among others.
There are 13 episodes with the finale expected to air on May 21.
McFadden said he's been a fan of the show since it first aired in 2000. It was a nice break from the rigors of medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has since watched most of the episodes. As he watches, he goes between 'I could do that' and 'Crap that would be hard.'
In 2012, a buddy who was on the show knew of his 'ridiculous' interest in 'Survivor' and invited him to attend the live finale in Los Angeles. He decided to send in the required three-minute videotape to become a contestant.
He didn't make it that time.
Then, years later, he heard the show was encouraging older people to apply. At 45 he did.
He is an avid runner, so he wasn't too concerned about fitness. But diving into the open ocean was, let's say, not so comfortable. He spent time jumping into pools at the YMCA and a deeper neighborhood pool.
And talking to himself.
'Fear doesn't mean it has to hold yourself back from trying,' he said. 'Eventually you learn you can succeed.'
He also read books like '48 Laws of Power' and 'Don't Split the Difference.'
No one is, of course, saying how McFadden did on the show.
Now 46, he called it an amazing experience and intends to watch with his wife, Tracey, two children, friends and family. His parents, Martin and Beth McFadden, still live on the same street where he grew up. They all attend the same church, Bible Way Church of Atlas Road, they've attended for years, despite McFadden and his family living in Greenville County, where he works for Prisma Health.
He's not looking ahead to the next challenge of his life. Not yet.
'I am in this moment,' he said, remembering this feeling he had on an island far from home: 'You're in Fiji. You're on 'Survivor.'
