CEU dentistry conquers board exams anew with ‘Fab Four’
Centro Escolar University (CEU) School of Dentistry graduates Claire Guerrero, Fernan Rey Anthony Arenas, Maria Therese “Kim” Teehankee, and Sarah Jane Cortez are keeping an amazing streak alive. Thanks to the quartet, CEU continues to dominate the list of topnotchers in the Professional Regulation Commission’s (PRC) Dentist Licensure Ex-
aminations.
CEU-Manila’s Guerrero, Arenas, Teehankee placed first (85.54 percent), second (84.06), and third (83.30), respectively, in the May-June 2018 board exams, while CEU-Malolos product Cortez placed sixth (82.67). That makes four of the coveted Top 10 placers.
“This is the best board exam result ever because we have the top three,” said CEU-Manila School of Dentistry Dean Dr. Pearly Lim during an on-campus interview.
“But for three consecutive May-June board exams since 2016, we have produced the number one topnotcher,” Lim bared proudly, and rightfully so.
That’s because passing the dentistry board is no cakewalk: the graduates have to undergo two grueling exams, the theoretical (written) and the practical (performance) exams. Only those who hurdled the theoretical exam, usually done in May, will qualify for the practical phase in June.
Only those who pass both tests, which take a total of five days, will have their accumulated scores released by the PRC.
There are 27 dentistry schools in the Philippines, and not just any school can claim to topping the board. The 93-yearold CEU has done it thrice in a row now.
“When somebody tops the board, I’d like to think it’s because of the effort of the students. Yung overall performance [ng examinees], sa school yun (The overall performance can be credited to the school). But for the students to top the board, they have their own initiative. They really prepared for it,” Lim said.
She also knows that CEU’s streak was among the motivations for the students to do well in the board exams.
Squad goals Preparing for the daunting licensure exams became somewhat easier for the eventual top three placers since most of them were friends from the start.
“Since pre-dentistry, we’ve been classmates in Section A,” Quezon province native Guerrero said. The 22-year-old noted that Arenas in particular was one of her closest pals.
“We created a Facebook group when we started reviewing for the exams. I would upload the reviewers that I received from the different review centers while they would do the same. It’s sharing, really,” Guerrero said.
“Dumami nang dumami yung members, minsan may ibang school pa kaming nakita, nagpo-post ng ‘thank you.’ Happy naman kasi na naka-abot sa iba (The members of the group grew, sometimes we see graduates from other schools and they post ‘thank you’ messages. We’re happy that it reached others).”
Arenas, 22, described his relationship with his classmate-friends as “solid.”
“Since we’re classmates, we help each other and share info from different kinds of reviewers. We graduated April 11, and the board exam was on May 2. That’s less than one month to review. Even if I wanted to enroll in multiple review centers, I couldn’t because there wasn’t enough time after graduation,” he recounted.
“We utilized that short time through sharing. For the practical phase, we reviewed here at CEU and asked questions from our professors like when we were still students,” added Arenas, who is from General Santos City.
Twenty-three-year-old Teehankee, the section president, narrated: “If I get notes, I would type them and share with our group.”
She said their best tip to each other during their short review phase was to “just don’t memorize. You don’t study to memorize; you study to understand.”
“You study to know the ins and outs, the loopholes, why this is it like that. Also when you read questions, you should understand each and every word because sometimes even if one word changes in the question, it could change your answer already,” said the graduate, who is granddaughter of the late former Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee.
The streak Cortez, the oldest of the CEU board placers at 24, revealed that the biggest motivation for her going into the licensure tests were the two most important people in her life.
“My biggest motivation would be my parents. I made it my responsibility to them to pass the boards and being a topnotcher is just an added bonus,” she said in a text message.
“I’m definitely most proud of myself, though what really touched my heart was when I saw how my family, friends, professors and especially my batch mates were genuinely happy for me. I’m also glad that I got to make CEU-Malolos proud,” added Cortez, who landed a job immediately after graduation.
Teehankee also bared how her family – full of topnotchers beginning with her esteemed grandfather – inspired her to do her best.
“I didn’t tell my family that I’d want to top, but it was in me to push myself so that I could continue the legacy. So I was praying for it and asking for guidance,” she said, adding that her relatives Ambassador Manuel Teehankee and Priscilla Teehankee were also topnotchers in their respective fields.
And then there’s the goal of keeping CEU’s own “tradition” of topping the dentistry board, which as of 2018 is three years in the running.
“I don’t want to fail CEU,” Guerrero said, “Ilang years na nag-top one, tapos ako pa cum Laude ng batch namin (CEU has topped the board for consecutive years and I’m the cum Laude of the batch). So they were really expecting from me. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.”