Urbandictionary.com, the premiere site for defining slang terminology, gives us the following:gunner (n.) - a person who is competitive, overly-ambitious, and substantially exceeds requirements. A gunner will compromise his/her peer relationships and/or reputation among peers in order to obtain recognition and praise from superiors. Synonyms include: obnoxious premed, grade-grubber, over-achieving worry-wort, annoying type A+ personality hand-raiser, someone demonstrating "Dook-syndrome," person who openly complains about test questions to course instructors because they didn't get the answer right even though other people did and they dislike the "poor-wording" of said question.
Okay so I added the synonyms, but the sentiment rings true. The tipping point for me was Thursday morning in lecture hall. I overheard a girl complaining that highest grade given out by the course directors was a 4.7/5 on the latest group project. Now this project was worth 5% of our total grade. A 4.7 now means that 0.3% of our total grade has been lost. No longer can anyone get a 100% in the class. No, a 99.7% is now the highest possible grade. I had to listen to this person whine about how (even though their group got a 4.7) the grade wasn't high enough, and how the other people in her group must have been the causation for such an atrocious score. Luckily, I'm not prone to violence (and even more luckily, I'm not in her small group).
When I look back on my undergraduate career, I successfully managed to avoid these people. I knew they were there, and I even knew a few of them, but for the most part I stayed away. By junior and senior year, I was taking upper level Chem classes and Political Science seminars. Upper level Chemmies are more interested in PhDs, and the PoliSci people are simply happy. Oh, how I miss those people! So happy! (Unless they were applying to Law School of course...). But few and far between were the people whose lives revolved around getting into medical school.
Now the actual process of getting accepted will make you pull out your hair. The pressure of MCATs, applications, interviews, and the waiting will drive you crazy. But once you're in, it's smooth sailing. We're all here to become doctors, right? You have to study and work hard, but this over-competitive tomfoolery is so undergrad folks. Do your best, and it will all work out in the end. I guess the problem is the process. Ingrained within us is this need to be on top. In high school you had to be top of your class to get into a great college, then you had to be one of the best to go to a great med school. So now you have to graduate the top of THIS class to get the best residency. But we're at UNC guys everyone is going to get into a good residency program. And it's pass/fail too, these grades don't even count! Please be happy now and worry about this stuff in two years. At least then I can be prepared for the onslaught of whining. I can't handle it right now.
Once classes actually started, it was quite a shock to me. Many of the amazing people that I thought I met during orientation flip-flopped big time. It's like they're completely different people now. Cut-throat, gotta be the best. Don't study this stuff because you need to get an A (which by the way, there are no As, only Ps), study it because you love it. Study it because you are going to be a physician, and THAT'S exciting. Everyone just needs to chill out.
I hear being a "gunner" gets weeded out by the 3rd year, but I'm still skeptical. Until then I'll stick with my Patch Adams mentality and try to get a few of these people to "smile." For those who haven't done this before, this might help (courtesy of dictionary.com):
smile (v.) - to assume a facial expression indicating pleasure, favor, or amusement, characterized by an upturning of the corners of the mouth. Synonyms include: grin, beam, and look happy.
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