Confession: I'm a gunner (who's with me?)

Started by Sabaday
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A "gunner" is the assh**e in my class who'd change labeling on stations during our anatomy practicals and intentionally contaminate our experiments in chemistry so it pulled the curve down to boost his own grades.

Studying hard to get ahead of the curve isn't gunning...
Exactly. In law school we had a guy who used to tear pages out of reserve books in the library so some of the class couldn't read the assignments-- same deal.
 
The craziest thing about medical school is that everyone is below average. It's the opposite of undergrad where everyone is above average.

That's... not how averages work.

What IS true that almost everyone in a medical school class will have been above average in undergrad. As a result, the bottom of a medical school class is still full of pretty bright individuals.

Edit: words were weirdly missing and now they're fixed
 
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Yeah, that's right, I'm a gunner -- but not an a**hole.

I'm going to be entering M1 this fall and it's a goal of mine to earn high honors, have the option of choosing to pursue a highly competitive specialty, and all that good stuff that comes with that.

Now, with that out of the way....

I was wondering if anyone else is planning on hard-core studying the month or two before matriculating? Similar to MCAT study schedule.

I haven't taken anatomy since my freshman year, and I want to smash the curve -- so I'm thinking about taking an intensive course this summer. Does anyone have any suggestions on courses or materials that overlap with M1 curriculum?
If anyone wants a accountability study-buddy, or share lists of study materials, PM me. :highfive:

And if anyone wants to flame me, go ahead. I'm fine busting my arse, to kick yours.

I wonder how long it it'll be before you lose your steam. Good luck to you and work hard!
 
If I play my cards right I should have a full 6 months to pre-study and then fully enjoy about half of june & all of july before entering medical school if all goes well, but I wouldn't consider myself a gunner. Just dedicated.
 
Have fun wasting your time.

How would it be me wasting my time if I am putting myself ahead with 6 months of relatively similar material medical students are already looking at? I'm not going to do it to be one of the top students in my class, i'm doing it to familiarize myself with material the best that I can since i'm a Psych major and won't be able to take courses like Physiology or Anatomy before entering medical school.
 
How would it be me wasting my time if I am putting myself ahead with 6 months of relatively similar material medical students are already looking at? I'm not going to do it to be one of the top students in my class, i'm doing it to familiarize myself with material the best that I can since i'm a Psych major and won't be able to take courses like Physiology or Anatomy before entering medical school.

Your lack of context will make your efforts highly inefficient. Maybe you'll make it slightly easier to learn M1 material, however considering M1 is by far the easiest year you might as well just get used to the pace of learning since it will only get worse. prestudying is in no way advantageous, in fact you might be hurting yourself.

If you really want to gun then use those 6 monthes to get multiple publications.
 
How would it be me wasting my time if I am putting myself ahead with 6 months of relatively similar material medical students are already looking at? I'm not going to do it to be one of the top students in my class, i'm doing it to familiarize myself with material the best that I can since i'm a Psych major and won't be able to take courses like Physiology or Anatomy before entering medical school.

You will be able to answer your own question for us after a couple months of medical school. By then, you'll understand exactly how you were wasting your time.
 
Yeah, that's right, I'm a gunner -- but not an a**hole.

I'm going to be entering M1 this fall and it's a goal of mine to earn high honors, have the option of choosing to pursue a highly competitive specialty, and all that good stuff that comes with that.

Now, with that out of the way....

I was wondering if anyone else is planning on hard-core studying the month or two before matriculating? Similar to MCAT study schedule.

I haven't taken anatomy since my freshman year, and I want to smash the curve -- so I'm thinking about taking an intensive course this summer. Does anyone have any suggestions on courses or materials that overlap with M1 curriculum?
If anyone wants a accountability study-buddy, or share lists of study materials, PM me. :highfive:

And if anyone wants to flame me, go ahead. I'm fine busting my arse, to kick yours.

What are you doing posting here? Going to medical school in the US doesn't sufficiently show your commitment to medicine. I personally will be attending SGU, the Harvard of the Caribbean. Come join us. All the real gunners are on ValueMD.com
 
bro the thing you have to understand is SDN is a very "lowest common denominator" place. i mean yea the premeds here are better informed than the rest but you ahve to remember most go to unheard of schools / state schools , they see DO as absolutely equal to MD and get upset if anyone dares question that, there is a certain amount of lethargy and apathy with these forum users too. so thats why they shun gunners.

im totally with you man. these guys have a p=md mentality and dont have the same intelligence as us. and thats a fact, you can make thousands of anki cards and highlight FireCracker and take Najeeb out to dinner, but if you dont have that intelligence you wont crack honors as easily. so they can have their FM, peds, allergy, they can enjoy being woken up 3 times a night in some God foresaken IM subspecialty and dying 20 years early due to lack of sleep.. you and me and the rest of the gifted ones can go derm / ortho and not be prisoners to corporate medicine

PM me if u wanna talk more to someone who keeps it real and is not just a parrot of SDN tropes
:claps:
I'm with you. I was talking with a guy at school today and he was taking about how he wanted to go into medicine but had done no prior research on it. Just felt like he wanted to 'do it'. So first I just reminded myself to stay mindful, objective and not criticize him because I know everyone has their own take on things and reasons behind their life goals.

He starts talking about how he's been wanting to 'do it' (actually keeps using this phrase analogously to becoming a doctor) for quite some time now, that it would just be awesome to diagnose patients and 'get it right' so they can become healthy again. I nod my head slightly and smile to agree, as if to say *yeah thats it mane* then I take a pause to make him think I'm seriously contemplating what he said but I'm actually thinking to myself *u have no idea what u r in 4 m8 I will wreck u I garentee and squash you like the little sadkunt you are you will NEVER, ****ING, MAKE IT!!!!*

I ask him if he's ever taken the prereqs and he has no idea, ask him if he's aware of the debt he's not sure, type of medicine? Doesn't know. I decide to save him some trouble and explain the debt, hours, residency challenges and came back full circle with the fact that his GPA is far too low and he will have to do post-bacc and even then nothing is guaranteed and now he doesn'teven want to practice medicine. 1 down.

View attachment 203807
sounds like a perfect Carib applicant.
 
there actually are plenty of "true saboteurs" out there. More than you'd like to think. Premeds just haven't encountered them yet. But still want to use big kids words...

And sometimes they wait until clinical years to pop out of the woodwork 😛

The craziest thing about medical school is that everyone is below average. It's the opposite of undergrad where everyone is above average.

Huh? :eyebrow:
 
That's... not how averages work.

What IS true that almost everyone in a medical will have been above average in undergrad. As a result, the bottom of a medical school class is still full of pretty bright individuals.
Yep. So you'll have a lot of people who were A students in undergrad who for the first time are below average. It's uncomfortable for some, a wake up call for others.
 
How would it be me wasting my time if I am putting myself ahead with 6 months of relatively similar material medical students are already looking at? I'm not going to do it to be one of the top students in my class, i'm doing it to familiarize myself with material the best that I can since i'm a Psych major and won't be able to take courses like Physiology or Anatomy before entering medical school.
you won't even remember it. And, you won't even know the right material to prepare for. You realize that hundreds of thousands of doctors that come before you don't do this and turn out great. You do you bro, but it's weird that this is your priority rather than living a balanced life where you do other things than study. You'll be studying so much once you start that you will regret wasting your time.
 
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I see people say pre studying is useless because the info in med school is so immense...but really, how BAD is it? Like are medical students assigned and have to know over 100 pages of info back to back every week? I realize that this can vary but to all med students, how much information were you expected to know within the span of a week, let's say in first year?
 
I see people say pre studying is useless because the info in med school is so immense...but really, how BAD is it? Like are medical students assigned and have to know over 100 pages of info back to back every week? I realize that this can vary but to all med students, how much information were you expected to know within the span of a week, let's say in first year?

No, it's just that you won't know how to contextualize it. The preclinical years of medical school are ultimately about building a framework. There's no way you will remember all the information you're taught indefinitely. But if you construct a mental framework that allows you to organize all the information you learn effectively, you'll be able to re-learn it very very quickly and make the necessary associations when you need to later on when it really matters (i.e. when you're seeing patients).

If you pre-study, sure, you'll get a first pass at some info, but you won't be constructing your framework and you'll be expending a lot of effort to learn something that 1) you'll have to learn again anyway and 2) you have no context for.

If you really want to get ahead of the curve, spend the summer learning to survive with less sleep (not overkill, but like 5-7 hours/night instead of sleeping in every day), start an exercise routine, learn how to cook cheap, healthy, tasty meals, and, if you still really want to do something academic, read a lot to increase your speed and retention, but make sure it's entirely non-medical stuff so you stave off burnout. I recommend non-fiction books targeted at the educated layman (so not textbooks and not Harry Potter, but stuff like Brian Greene and Stephen Jay Gould). Medical school is all about finding your system so if you come in with one already starting to form, you'll have an edge over clueless people like me who came in trying to wing it. This will be infinitely more helpful than memorizing all the thoracic arteries or whatever.
 
I see people say pre studying is useless because the info in med school is so immense...but really, how BAD is it? Like are medical students assigned and have to know over 100 pages of info back to back every week? I realize that this can vary but to all med students, how much information were you expected to know within the span of a week, let's say in first year?

Example: in anatomy, all of the muscles (+origin, insertion, action, innervation), vessels, and nerves in the arm in a week. Plus time in the lab to dissect.

In 2nd year, our cardio course was 900 pages of lecture notes over 5 weeks.
 
Example: in anatomy, all of the muscles (+origin, insertion, action, innervation), vessels, and nerves in the arm in a week. Plus time in the lab to dissect.

In 2nd year, our cardio course was 900 pages of lecture notes over 5 weeks.

You got 5 weeks for cardio??

We barely got 4 🙁
 
I don't see how browsing through the material for, say, 1-2 hours everyday is detrimental to a balanced lifestyle. I did the same thing for physics the summer before college and it made things immensely easier (especially since I never took physics before), and gave me time to volunteer during my Freshman year. I still had fun during summer, but it's not like your going to spend every minute of every day partying it up. Why not spend some of your leisure time browsing through an anatomy book, which is going to be a hell of a lot of rote memorization anyway?
 
How would you get access to that material?

I guess if you go to Harvard they have old lecture notes from a bunch of old courses. But even if you happen to learn ALL the wrong information, I don't think it's likely to hurt you. It's not a big commitment and your not going to run out of memory space.
 
I guess if you go to Harvard they have old lecture notes from a bunch of old courses. But what I'm saying is even if you happen to learn ALL the wrong information, it's unlikely to hurt you, unless you happen to run out of brain space.
That's actually not true. You can learn things wrong, or superficially and they will stick. It's much harder to unlearn things than to learn things from scratch. And when you are struggling on a test you won't know which version your brain is going to pull out of that hat.
 
Notes from first year stacked up to the student who is now a surgeon

View attachment 203839

SnPpi8L.jpg
My almost done with first year amount of notes

Maybe double that if you include stuff I typed up
 
SnPpi8L.jpg
My almost done with first year amount of notes

Maybe double that if you include stuff I typed up
Yeah that other picture looks insane. Maybe accurate if she printed out every lecture slide (1 page per slide) but then it still looks ridiculous.

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That's actually not true. You can learn things wrong, or superficially and they will stick. It's much harder to unlearn things than to learn things from scratch. And when you are struggling on a test you won't know which version your brain is going to pull out of that hat.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, I didn't mean actually learning incorrect information. I meant learning low-yield information that you may or may not focus on in class. I'm curious now at what medical schools teach. Are they not information that can still be referenced to in books?
 
Perhaps I wasn't clear, I didn't mean actually learning incorrect information. I meant learning low-yield information that you may or may not focus on in class. I'm curious now at what medical schools teach. Are they not information that can still be referenced to in books?

Spend several months learning things on your own or you can spend 2-3 weeks in a class and learn it with everyone else with the proper materials and professional instructors? There are far better things you can be doing with your time than pre-studying medical school curriculum.

If you're taking a class like gen chem, you could do a workbook over the summer that would create the framework like wedgedawg mentioned, and then the class might come easier. This is not the same.
 
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Yeah that other picture looks insane. Maybe accurate if she printed out every lecture slide (1 page per slide) but then it still looks ridiculous.

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4 months x 4 lecture hours/day x 30 days/month x 60 slides/lecture = 28,800 pages
4 months x 3 lecture hours/day x 30 days/month x 60 slides/lecture = 21,600 pages

so 50,400 pages of paper at 0.05 mm/piece of paper = 2520 mm = 2.5 meters of paper so ~8 feet tall

So if I printed out every single lecture slide I have ever had at one slide/sheet, it would stack 8 feet tall. However, the amount of information on one slide does not equal the amount of information on one sheet of text. I would say that ~10 slides = one sheet of text or so (just kinda made that up).

So if we divide that by 10, we get about 9-10 inches. Range is probably 6 inches to 2 feet based on these somewhat random estimations. That's about 5000 pages of text. If we divide that by 8 months worth of days, or 240 days, we get 21 pages of text per day. Not 100.

Edit: forgot weekends existed in my calculations so the number would actually probably be like 15% less than what was calculated here, but I'm not going to go through and re-do it
 
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Spend several months learning things on your own or you can spend 2-3 weeks in a class and learn it with everyone else with the proper materials and professional instructors? There are far better things you can be doing with your time than pre-studying medical school curriculum.

Its different if you're taking a class like gen chem, you could do a workbook over the summer that would create the framework like wedgedawg mentioned, and then the class might come easier. This is not the same.

I remember things better and more easily when exposed to it again after an extended break. If I were to do something like this, I'd probably substitute something unproductive like Reddit or instagram. But I can see from what everyone is saying, there is too much variability from school to school to make it worthwhile
 
Perhaps I wasn't clear, I didn't mean actually learning incorrect information. I meant learning low-yield information that you may or may not focus on in class. I'm curious now at what medical schools teach. Are they not information that can still be referenced to in books?
Not all books are created equal and many even oversimplify to the extent that it's half truths. People who take certain medical courses in undergrad sometimes even find it hurt them because a lot of what the undergrad prof thought you should focus on about the topic emphasized the wrong aspects and glossed over the meat. And you'll do worse on your own.
 
I remember things better and more easily when exposed to it again after an extended break. If I were to do something like this, I'd probably substitute something unproductive like Reddit or instagram. But I can see from what everyone is saying, there is too much variability from school to school to make it worthwhile

I feel the same way as you. Regardless of what people say I'm gonna relax (travel for 3 weeks) AND read some textbook for learning+enjoyment also. I'm sure it's not nearly as efficient as it will be when school starts.... but I can't see it hurting to read Robbins pathology and Constanzo physiology to get some foundation especially if you know yourself well, is itching and motivated to learn, and know that you won't burnout.
 
That's... not how averages work.

What IS true that almost everyone in a medical school class will have been above average in undergrad. As a result, the bottom of a medical school class is still full of pretty bright individuals.

Edit: words were weirdly missing and now they're fixed
Pretty sure the post you're quoting was joke. We really do need a sarcasm font on here...
Example: in anatomy, all of the muscles (+origin, insertion, action, innervation), vessels, and nerves in the arm in a week. Plus time in the lab to dissect.
Not delving into the whole pre-study debate (I'm not going to do it, but not because "it's impossible" but rather because it's unnecessary and I'm busy enjoying myself and travelling), but it's posts like this that always make me think the whole "you can't imagine the med school workload" attitude is overblown. This pace just doesn't seem that ridiculous to me...in fact, it seems pretty much the same speed as the Anatomy course I took.
 
Not delving into the whole pre-study debate (I'm not going to do it, but not because "it's impossible" but rather because it's unnecessary and I'm busy enjoying myself and travelling), but it's posts like this that always make me think the whole "you can't imagine the med school workload" attitude is overblown. This pace just doesn't seem that ridiculous to me...in fact, it seems pretty much the same speed as the Anatomy course I took.

It's not the workload by itself, it's structuring a mental foundation that will retain relevant information for long term use. Knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum. The ultimate goal of medical school isn't to pass a test, it's to become a doctor, and if you learn things the wrong way, it won't be conducive to being a practicing physician.
 
It's not the workload by itself, it's structuring a mental foundation that will retain relevant information for long term use. Knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum. The ultimate goal of medical school isn't to pass a test, it's to become a doctor, and if you learn things the wrong way, it won't be conducive to being a practicing physician.
I know your views on it; we've had this debate multiple times. I'm not doing it again. We disagree, and you're convinced that in a few months we'll agree. Vamos a ver.

The comment on volume was only that: a comment on volume.
 
I know your views on it; we've had this debate multiple times. I'm not doing it again. We disagree, and you're convinced that in a few months we'll agree. Vamos a ver.

The comment on volume was only that: a comment on volume.

I know we've had this discussion before. I'm just commenting for the convenience of other users who might be viewing this thread 😉

You may agree in a few months, you may not (I'm curious to know though, either way, so please do let me know your thoughts at the end of your first semester!). I'm just giving my advice here based on my own experience and OP/other people considering this may choose to ignore it or heed it - who knows what might be "best" for them?

I'll stop commenting now though, if you wish, to avoid the risk of running through the same circles that we've run through in the past.
 
I know we've had this discussion before. I'm just commenting for the convenience of other users who might be viewing this thread 😉

You may agree in a few months, you may not (I'm curious to know though, either way, so please do let me know your thoughts at the end of your first semester!). I'm just giving my advice here based on my own experience and OP/other people considering this may choose to ignore it or heed it - who knows what might be "best" for them?

I'll stop commenting now though, if you wish, to avoid the risk of running through the same circles that we've run through in the past.
Haha, fair enough! I'll definitely let you know what I end up thinking (and I'll even try to put aside my intrinsic stubbornness to give a real, honest assessment!) And no need to stop commenting or anything, just putting it out there that I know I'm not addressing your points, and it's not because they're not valid or I don't have a response, just that I'm lazy right now, sorry. 😛

And in the end, we agree on the important part: pre-studying is just not worth the effort!
 
Ya maybe if you stack a bunch of books you read 1/20th of.
Nah -- this is likely printouts of the syllabi and lecture notes -- things a lot of the class will read 100% of and much of it more than once. Someone at my med school did a similar photo when I was there and it was at least this tall. You cover a LOT of material in med school. You might not be as aware these days because everything is online and we kill fewer trees.
 
No, it's just that you won't know how to contextualize it. The preclinical years of medical school are ultimately about building a framework. There's no way you will remember all the information you're taught indefinitely. But if you construct a mental framework that allows you to organize all the information you learn effectively, you'll be able to re-learn it very very quickly and make the necessary associations when you need to later on when it really matters (i.e. when you're seeing patients).

If you pre-study, sure, you'll get a first pass at some info, but you won't be constructing your framework and you'll be expending a lot of effort to learn something that 1) you'll have to learn again anyway and 2) you have no context for.

If you really want to get ahead of the curve, spend the summer learning to survive with less sleep (not overkill, but like 5-7 hours/night instead of sleeping in every day), start an exercise routine, learn how to cook cheap, healthy, tasty meals, and, if you still really want to do something academic, read a lot to increase your speed and retention, but make sure it's entirely non-medical stuff so you stave off burnout. I recommend non-fiction books targeted at the educated layman (so not textbooks and not Harry Potter, but stuff like Brian Greene and Stephen Jay Gould). Medical school is all about finding your system so if you come in with one already starting to form, you'll have an edge over clueless people like me who came in trying to wing it. This will be infinitely more helpful than memorizing all the thoracic arteries or whatever.


Would you say that first year is almost like just memorizing factoids and second year is when one really understands it?
I'm only in undergrad but I looked at a copy of first aid once just out of curiousity and I kinda freaked out. That is a lot of minutiae, how on Earth do students remember and integrate all of those little details? Does your brain just adjust or what? Sorry if this sounds really naive but I really am curious
 
Would you say that first year is almost like just memorizing factoids and second year is when one really understands it?
I'm only in undergrad but I looked at a copy of first aid once just out of curiousity and I kinda freaked out. That is a lot of minutiae, how on Earth do students remember and integrate all of those little details? Does your brain just adjust or what? Sorry if this sounds really naive but I really am curious

I'm in an accelerated curriculum so we do basically everything together. Our first semester was laying the foundation for a systems based approach by learning biochemistry, histology, pathology, embryology, pharmacology, and genetics, and we are currently right in the middle of our two semester systems unit that does both system physiology and pathophysiology.

Right now we're almost done with our renal unit and I just pulled out my copy of first aid and am flipping through the renal section. A month ago, I would have had no idea what's going on here, but now that I've been through the unit, I can look at a random topic and fit it in to my overall framework for how the renal system works. The chapter is much more digestible and not just a collection of random facts. In fact, if you want to try to approximate what pre-studying for medical school is like, try and read through a unit in first aid before going through it and look at how intimidating it is, then go through right at the end and see how much more sense it makes. First Aid does not go into as much depth as we do in lecture (though there are a couple of things that we don't emphasize that FA does, and at the same time things we emphasize that FA leaves out), but it's a good overview of high yield facts and topics.
 
OP, here...

What you guys don't understand is that studying doesn't burn me out... rather, it give me more energy. Sortof like how exercising gives me more energy.

If that sounds crazy to you -- we're just different...

Posting hundreds our thousands of times on SDN, or reading SDN on a weekend like you guys... now that would burn me out.

Thanks to everyone who PM'd me. I'll follow up.
 
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I do think it is possible to pre-study well since by now most of us should have logins that allow us to get to our school's recorded lectures.....but this stuff will be our lives for the next 30-50yrs. I'm fine holding off for the next couple months. Once we start med school, things will never be the same again and we'll be on a hamster wheel that will keep spinning for at least 7 yrs- no need to jump on early.

Travelling around to see friends that you may not be able to see for a long time and knocking things off your bucket list so you're not bitter when you see everyone having fun while you're in school is much more productive.

(You'll probably also take 2 months to cover something you'll be forced to learn in a week at school, which doesn't seem very time efficient to me)
 
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OP, here...

What you guys don't understand is that studying doesn't burn me out... rather, it give me more energy. Sortof like how exercising gives me more energy.

If that sounds crazy to you -- we're just different...

Posting hundreds our thousands of times on SDN, or reading SDN on a weekend like you guys... now that would burn me out.

Thanks to everyone who PM'd me. I'll follow up.
Your analogy is quite ironic. Muscular strength/endurance cannot be improved without adequate rest. In fact, excessive exercise can lead to overuse injuries and burnout.

Anyway, I hope you find time for (non-studying) fun this summer.
 
Cognitive psychology and learning theory supports the notion of superficial pre-study as a means of increasing future content integration, synthesis, and retention. So... OP, as ridiculous as their approach might seem, isn't entirely in vain.