TWO Cebuanas made it to the top 10 of the Pharmacist Licensure Examination given by the Professional Regulation Commission last Aug. 4 to 5 this year.
Louise Theunis, a graduate of the Cebu Doctors’ University (CDU), held the top spot out of the 4,230 test-takers with a score of 91.55 percent while Danixzyle Cutamora from the University of San Carlos placed eight with a score of 90.88 percent.
Theunis is the first Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy graduate of CDU who was included in the top 10 and became the first placer of the exam.
She was an academic scholar and a president’s lister during her college years. She graduated magna cum laude.
In an interview, Theunis and Cutamora said they did not expect to be included in the top 10 list of board exam passers.
“I knew there were so many brilliant minds in the country. I was only hoping,” said Theunis.
“The exam was very hard and by the end of it, I honestly just wished I, at least, passed,” Cutamora, for her part, said.
Both of them said they were grateful and felt mixed-emotions to see their names in the topnotchers’ list.
Before the exam day, Cutamora said she studied every day as there are no shortcuts in passing the exam.
Theunis, for her part, said that being a pharmacy student is difficult as one have to deal with diagnosis, symptoms, first aid measures, anatomy, chemistry, and physics, among others.
But although it is hard, Cutamora considered her degree as interesting, fulfilling, and an wonderful area of study.
“I don’t really have any feeling or opinion about me and her being the only Cebuanas in the top 10. Were all Filipinos anyway. Why the segregation? As I said, where you come from doesn’t matter. What matters is what kind of person you are,” Theunis said.
Both of them advised aspiring pharmacists to believe and not to be too hard on themselves. (CLARENZ JAY MENDOZA, USJ-R INTERN)