Did you PAY for SketchyMicro/Pharm? lol

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Did you pay?

  • Yes

    Votes: 122 47.3%

  • No, that's like $300 that I don't have

    Votes: 136 52.7%
  • Total voters
    258
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7

787593

Genuinely curious b/c idk anyone who did...
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I paid for it, because if people like myself weren't paying for Sketchy Micro, Sketchy Pharm wouldn't exist. Creators should get paid for their content, both from the ethical angle and so you can hopefully get better content down the line. I mean, they're a bunch of medical students that put in a lot of work, they deserve it.
 
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TheaterOfTheme said:
Yeah its kinda amazing how many people dont pay for stuff...I did but I do think the sketch is a bit overpriced. Pathoma is a better resource by a good amount and its like 1/3 the price.
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They are apples to oranges though. Pathoma is primary learning, sketchy is memorization/recall. They should be used in conjunction with each other. Personally, I watch B&B, follow it with the sketchy videos, and depending on time/understanding I hit pathoma the next day as a review/second pass at high speed. Paid for all of them (well our school paid for sketchy). Figure if I'm paying 3-400k for an education, a couple hundred to do markedly better is well worth the price.

Also, I have access to all of them free, but want to support the creators. Now books that are pushed to us chapter by chapter in pdf in clinical key/access med? I have no qualms about using full pdf's of the books, rather than having to download them chapter by chapter for each class day
 
They obviously deserve compensation for their work but many of these test-assisting tools are over-priced. They know students will desperately pay for it and it's a shame. Like how do you gut 1) students and 2) people who are actually trying to do good in the world lol
 
ThrowAwayStepDO said:
it always amazes me when my school facebook thread is inundated with the sjw's throwing around the atrocities of this world in regards to ethics and doing what is right, then they turn around and openly ask for pdfs of every damn med school book that has ever existed, sketchy, pathoma, etc. i just chuckle at the hypocrisy.
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They just want socioeconomic information equality
 
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I'm not sure that Pathoma/Sketchy even existed when I was in school. If they did, they weren't widely used. (I'm not exactly sure what either even are, but of course the expansion of good resources kind of explains why Step scores keep going up).

However, PDFs of all the specialty/rotation review books were widely had and distributed at my med school. Of course I later got to residency and the author of one of the books was one of my attendings.
 
bananafish94 said:
I happily pay for all of the third party resources that I use. Frankly I think it's pretty slimy to stiff people who make quality educational materials that they sell for extremely reasonable prices.
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I agree with this as well...I mean I don't like forking over more money and also had access to the free materials. But damn, I wouldn't even understand path at this point without Sattar. He is a hero.
 
TheaterOfTheme said:
I agree with this as well...I mean I don't like forking over more money and also had access to the free materials. But damn, I wouldn't even understand path at this point without Sattar. He is a hero.
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Agreed. Pathoma is quite possibly the best purchase I've ever made, and that's not an exaggeration. I think that there's a storied tradition of "the system" trying to extract as much money as possible from students (Why does Step 1 cost $700? When I was in college why did I have to buy access codes for $300?) so I'm more than happy to support people who break that system and offer useful, fairly-priced materials.
 
Nope. Didn't pay for anything except UW (and angry our school didn't offer it).

Feel free to make yourself feel better for shelling out, but good luck making me feel remorseful. After four years we are each responsible for however much debt we have personally accrued, but our rationalization for it wont contribute even a penny.
 
TheaterOfTheme said:
Yeah its kinda amazing how many people dont pay for stuff...I did but I do think the sketch is a bit overpriced. Pathoma is a better resource by a good amount and its like 1/3 the price.
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To add to what was said above, it sucks...but some things are priced based on cost rather than worth. Sketchy likely had a much higher overhead bc of artwork for every video. I think it is a matter of them needing to turn a profit from paying artists rather than them just setting prices high. Either way all of these outside resources to me are about 100x better ROI than my tuition.
 
atomheart said:
Nope. Didn't pay for anything except UW (and angry our school didn't offer it).

Feel free to make yourself feel better for shelling out, but good luck making me feel remorseful. After four years we are each responsible for however much debt we have personally accrued, but our rationalization for it wont contribute even a penny.
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I'm assuming you're one who never worked before med school. Otherwise you would understand the value of wanting to be compensated for your work and promoting that system through your own actions. Different strokes for different folks.
 
Gilakend said:
I'm assuming you're one who never worked before med school. Otherwise you would understand the value of wanting to be compensated for your work and promoting that system through your own actions. Different strokes for different folks.
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Nope. Worked plenty before medical school.
 
I find it interesting how many people think it's ok to hunt down/use online resources without paying for them and yet would be so quick to advocate for punishment of people who steal items of lesser value off of a store shelf. Cost of additional educational resources is factored into our financial aid package. If you don't want to pay for the product, don't use it. And the argument that you're already paying through the nose for your education is not valid---if you paid a lot (or even too much) for a house, would you be able to justify stealing the furniture for the inside simply because you're already paying for the house? No.
 
atomheart said:
Nope. Didn't pay for anything except UW (and angry our school didn't offer it).

Feel free to make yourself feel better for shelling out, but good luck making me feel remorseful. After four years we are each responsible for however much debt we have personally accrued, but our rationalization for it wont contribute even a penny.
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Lol
 
sb247 said:
it's confusing to you that a lot of people might think theft is wrong?
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No. But I can see your confusion. I found it interesting that 40% didn't pay for sketchy, but very few of them responded.

I'm not a proponent of theft lol
 
Small Cell Carcinoma said:
I use a friend of a friend's account. It is not very helpful for pharmacology and I cannot imagine why anyone would spend $300 on it. It is hard enough trying to memorize hundreds of drugs for each exam without trying to recall a clever story to go with it.
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This is my main regret in purchasing it--I only find the bacterial sketches useful, personally. Perhaps, that will change once I'm board studying? Idk
Maybe others have advice on how to effectively use ALL of the sketches.
 
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atomheart said:
You overestimate how much people care about this.
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You can also feel superior in that you did not purchase it and the rest of us were 'conned'. I understand how you feel though--as med students we are constantly getting the short end of some financial stick. Unfortunately, we'd like to stick it to our greedy schools/lenders but can't. Idk man--you're welcome for my contribution to your learning 😉

I have to admit I don't feel super ethically inclined either way. But it does slightly p*ss me off when people just expect stuff for free. As long as one has a good reason for not paying--I understand. But, we got homie over here with his parents paying for med school but he can't afford $100 bucks for Pathoma.
 
I don't get how people get by WITHOUT it, especially bugs and drugs. There is no way in hell I'd remember 3/4 of what I do without sketchy. It's so much easier to remember things in a context or with a connection (see: peg, mnemonics, loci, etc) that just straight rote. Do I remember all 55 "hotspots" on some of the longer videos? No of course not, but it's so much easier to recall the basic sketch and major components than to one off memorize a list.
 
mavric1298 said:
I don't get how people get by WITHOUT it, especially bugs and drugs. There is no way in hell I'd remember 3/4 of what I do without sketchy. It's so much easier to remember things in a context or with a connection (see: peg, mnemonics, loci, etc) that just straight rote. Do I remember all 55 "hotspots" on some of the longer videos? No of course not, but it's so much easier to recall the basic sketch and major components than to one off memorize a list.
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I got by just fine in my micro class without it by just using our textbook for it (Microbiology made ridiculously simple). My problem was that the info didn't stick as well as I wanted (especially antibiotics) and I didn't do as well with it on boards as I did during my class. I don't think that would have been the case if I'd used sketch regularly, at least for the micro portion.

atomheart said:
Nope. Worked plenty before medical school.
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So you're just an a-hole. Got it.
 
Even though this thread’s a bit obnoxious OP is right about how many people use Alternate accounts for Sketchy. I didn’t do it because I lacked the shamelessness to ask people but I’ve seen people using accounts of people they hardly know. I’m surprised there’s no view limit.
 
YoungDoc25 said:
I definitely wouldn’t steal the furniture, but I’d sure as heck take the offer of a free couch or chair from friends. But to you that’s “stealing” from the original furniture store then too, huh?
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Bad analogy. You're not really buying any of the sketchy or Pathoma material, you're renting it. So it's not really yours to give away or share with whomever you want. I actually wouldn't have a problem with the whole splitting the cost with a friend thing if it weren't illegal per the terms of agreement, my issue is with the people who download it then share it with everyone under the sun. Regardless, when you pay for the product you sign a contract not to download or share the content with other people, which includes sharing your login info. If you're not paying for it, you're actually breaking the law.

Also, to the people saying "OMG! $300 is way too much $$$ to pay!!!", you all realize you'll literally make that back in an hour, two hours at the most, once you're an attending (which you'll partially have Sketchy to thank for that), right?
 
YoungDoc25 said:
I definitely wouldn’t steal the furniture, but I’d sure as heck take the offer of a free couch or chair from friends. But to you that’s “stealing” from the original furniture store then too, huh? 🙄
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Dangg--that dark side is strong. We should take a new poll to see how many pay for all of their PDFs. I guarantee that one would look differently haha

See, this is a perfect example that demonstrates there are no moral absolutes. Here's what this is like. If you torrent a Metallica album--you can argue that little harm is done in the process. They're a big band from a big label(s) and are rollin' in the dough. Boohoo, one less ferrari. But, if you torrent an album from the sad indie band who makes like 30k a year and has to tour every waking moment to stay afloat, you have a qualitatively different situation, and you are a piece of ****. Personally, I support the things I find valuable in this world. But who knows, all this thread is demonstrating is the inherent ethical dilemma of scarcity that is intrinsic to the nature of humanity.

Human condition: 1, SDN: 0.
 
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TheaterOfTheme said:
Dangg--that dark side is strong. We should take a new poll to see how many pay for all of their PDFs. I guarantee that one would look differently haha

See, this is a perfect example that demonstrates there are no moral absolutes. Here's what this is like. If you torrent a Metallica album--you can argue that little harm is done in the process. They're a big band from a big label(s) and are rollin' in the dough. Boohoo, one less ferrari. But, if you torrent an album from the sad indie band who makes like 30k a year and has to tour every waking moment to stay afloat, you have a qualitatively different situation, and you are a piece of ****. Personally, I support the things I find valuable in this world. But who knows, all this thread is demonstrating is the inherent ethical dilemma of scarcity that is intrinsic to the nature of humanity.

Human condition: 1, SDN: 0.
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That does not at all demonstrate that there are no moral absolutes
 
SDN cannot control what people decide to do in private but using the forums as an illegal point of distribution for copyrighted materials will not be tolerated, FYI.

Regardless of your own character, you could get into trouble if the rightful owner notices this and decides to take legal action.
 
mavric1298 said:
I don't get how people get by WITHOUT it, especially bugs and drugs. There is no way in hell I'd remember 3/4 of what I do without sketchy. It's so much easier to remember things in a context or with a connection (see: peg, mnemonics, loci, etc) that just straight rote. Do I remember all 55 "hotspots" on some of the longer videos? No of course not, but it's so much easier to recall the basic sketch and major components than to one off memorize a list.
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Is "micro made ridiculously simple" still a thing? That book was so stupid... but helped make micro my best subsection of step 1.
 
As i have said before, all of the assumption of ethical wrong-doing and theft hinge on the idea that intellectual property should be treated similarly to tangible assets. There is a good argument to be made that the two are distinctly different and shouldn't be seen as the same.
 
SunsFun said:
As i have said before, all of the assumption of ethical wrong-doing and theft hinge on the idea that intellectual property should be treated similarly to tangible assets. There is a good argument to be made that the two are distinctly different and shouldn't be seen as the same.
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Agreed, and much like any ethical issue - it's not black and white for other reasons too. To me, "stealing" a pdf copy of a textbook instead of buying it from Pearson is NOT remotely equal to "stealing" Pathoma from Dr. Sattar. Context is important - even if by the letter of the law there is no difference. F#*& Pearson from start to finish, and I have no qualms about it, especially when they go out of their way to exploit students, teachers, and basically everyone involved.
 
To all the people who didn't pay for sketchy, but still use it to become you know... doctors, where your earning that nice salary in the next 30-40 years of your life, sketchy comes out to be $.027 cents a day, and the fact that your not willing to pay for it shows the type of person you are.

And yes the knowledge from sketchy will last you a lifetime, if not, then it definitely helped you get that degree. Don't worry you'll know how it feels real soon when your patients use your services and don't pay the rest of their bill. Also if your silly enough to show off that you don't pay and steal other peoples services and think that sketchy medical people aren't watching the post on SDN, then you definitely deserve what's coming to you.
 
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