UNIVERSIDAD DE STA. ISABEL (USI) Nursing has always put a premium on quality more than quantity.This is the real tradition of excellence that the Vincentian nurses have always upheld. Buckets of tears have flowed and many hearts were broken when – desiring to be admitted to the USI Nursing school, those who do not make the grade are reluctantly turned away. USI chooses to sacrifice the income to maintain quality. That’s why in these hard times, that is a sacrifice indeed.

         The first Bachelor of Science in Nursing students of USI graduated in l971. The passing rate was 100%. The next year, l972, passing rate was again 100%. In l973 one student did not make it and that made the passing rate 97.7%. But the following years,l974 and l975, passing rate was again 100% for both years. In l976, one graduate again did not make it. The passing rate was 97.2% for that year.

         In l977, passing rate was back to 100%. And for the first time USI had board placers. Rosalinda Olea was 3rd in the national board exams, and Consuelo de Leon was board 8th placer in the same year. The next year, l978, passing rate was again 100%. In l979 Ma. Theresa Nacario was 6th national board placer, and the passing rate was 93.9%. The following year, l980, one graduate did not make it, and the passing rate was 98%.

         There was a second national board exam for l980, and USI’s passing rate was 100%. For the next years, l981 and l982, one student for each year did not make it, and the passing percentage was 95% and 95.8%, respectively. A year after in l983, passing rate was again 100% with Ramoncito Serapio placing 8th in the national board exams. In l984, USI bagged another 100% passing rate. And so on and so forth, a wonderful trail of glory for USI Nursing. Through the years USI was almost always above the national passing rate.

         In the April l986 Nursing Board Exams, USI’s Ma. Perpetua Reyes placed 10th, Eden Adversario placed 14th, and Cyril Cunanan placed 20th – all in one year! In June l989, USI had a 4th placer in the national exams. In June l99l alone, USI had 6 national placers! Maria Rowena Roco was 3rd! Then Erwina Jonky Ruiz was 11th, Antonia Rodrigo was 12th, Ma. Hyacinth Margaret Brioso was 15th, Marie Shiela Arrieta was also 15th placer, and Nathaniel Buendia was 20th. The following year, l992, Leslie Deliva was 13th placer. The same year, in December l992, Ma. Loreto Evangelista was 3rd placer!

         In May l994, Sally Claire Belano placed 10th, Josephine Gigi Estrada placed 16th, and Dolan Timugen Hermosa also placed 16th. In December of the same year 3 more USI nurses again became placers, making it another total of 6th placers in one year: Caroline Regaspi 12th place, Christine Marie Patrocinio 13th place, and Alex Moll 20th place. The next year l995, Amadeo Rivera, Jr. placed 12th. The following year l996 three USI nurses were again placers: Ninfa Alberto 13th place, Regina Betito 20th place, and Joanna Shea 20th place. In May l997 Cyril Maureen Dubas was 19th placer. In November l998 Greg Dumaguin placed 18th. In May of the same year Nina Trinidad Bulaong became 19th placer, and Mathilda Briones 20th. In June 2006 Emmie Villamer was 10th placer, Kristine Joan Aguirre 13th placer, and Jo Rubyn Pasion also 13th place. In June 2008, the same 10th placer, Emmie Villamer, became 9th placer in midwifery.

         In June 2008 for the first time takers, USI had a passing percentage of 73%, almost twice higher than the national passing percentage of 43%, and the highest in Naga City.

         For the 2008 USI Nursing graduates only, in an updated count, 98 took the exams and 83 passed. A clean 84.69% passing percentage. This gives USI an unsurpassed lead in Nursing board performance – consistenly No. 1 in Naga City.

         Several factors contribute to USI’s unsurpassed Nursing record. The school conducts rigid screening for quality and refuses to lower its qualifying standards for the sake of quantity and income. It provides top A-1 facilities for the skills development of its students. It has a good faculty line-up not only backed-up with solid academic backgrounds, but immersed and formed in the Vincentian values of the school. It has enviable practicum avenues provided by linkages with several case study-rich hospitals in Metro Manila and Naga and, last but not the least, it has its own multi-awarded Mother Seton Hospital, the biggest and most well-equipped tertiary hospital in the Bicol Region.

         Having an unsurpassed Nursing board performance in Naga has, as evidenced by the records of the past from its first year of operation, been like second nature to USI Nursing.