Results of the November 2009 Philippine nursing board exams have just come out and we would like to congratulate the country’s new batch of nurses who passed. The bad news is that only 40 percent of the 94,462 graduates who took the nursing licensure exams made it. I wonder what options there are for those not in the list. Either they will try again in the 2010 licensure examinations, continue to work in hospitals or try their luck as caregivers where no license is required.

Most of those in the list of topnotchers come from little-known universities in the provinces. For example, this year’s top spot went to Clarie Morales Bontol of Iligan Medical Center College Inc. No. 2 was Noel Bryan Cueto of Lyceum Batangas and on No. 3 was Dickson Araza Laude of St. Scholastica’s College of Health Sciences-Tacloban. This only means one thing.. You don’t have to be in Manila and study in an expensive nursing school here to get good education as a nurse. So far, the only school in Manila to figure prominently in the top 10 passers of the 2009 nursing board exams is the publicly-run Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

The complete list of the November 2009 nursing board exam passers via this page in the gmanews.tv website.

The oath-taking of successful examinees will be on March 8 and 9, 2010 at the SMX Convention Center, SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City.