Alums Return to Campus for Film Session
Pharmacy Practice Center Doubles as Sound Stage for Parody of Michael Jackson’s Famous ‘Thriller’ Music Video
The sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” resonated through the Library Annex on the Touro University California campus in August as a pair of College of Pharmacy alumnae returned “home” to film a music video for a contest sponsored by the statewide pharmacy organization.
Drs. Bernice (Wright) Perez (PharmD Class of 2015) and Brigitte Ouabo (PharmD Class of 2016) were here Aug. 12 to film in the Practice Pharmacy Center.
The video is for the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ annual music video competition, which is designed “to elevate and celebrate” pharmacy practitioners, according to the competition website.
Their video is titled “More Than Fillers” and features current pharmacy students – who are also members of the CSHP student chapter on campus – serving as backup dancers.
The competition is open to all individuals, groups, affiliate chapters, and students.
Video Session Represents a ‘Homecoming’ for Alums
Production of the music video was a homecoming of sorts for both Perez and Ouabo.
Perez was on the Dance Team while she was a student at TUC. Ouabo joined the Alumni Association Board of Directors in 2023. Both spoke of the importance of not only supporting their profession, but also of bringing current students into the process.
“Since I graduated, Touro has always felt like home, so I love coming back whether it’s to teach, or precept, or anything. I love excuses to come back to campus,” Ouabo says. “So when I decided to do the CSHP video competition, and my co-worker and I chose to do a parody of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ we were looking for a pharmacy we could use to do the shots, and I said, ‘Wait a minute. I think Touro has something we can use.’ ”
And so began a process to gain the necessary approvals to use the Pharmacy Practice Center.
“I couldn’t come on campus here and do something without involving the students,” Ouabo says. “I put out an announcement, and we got three students, so I’m really excited to see how it turns out.”
Ouabo says she and Perez sought to keep things light – opting for something fun rather than something more serious in nature.
“I initially wanted to do lyrics about advocating for the profession, and bills that CSHP’s passing, because the competition is about CSHP,” Ouabo says. “But to make the lyrics work, we realized we had to do something light and fun, and ‘filler’ just came to mind and it rhymes with ‘thriller,’ and we thought we could do something to re-emphasize the fact that pharmacists just don’t count pills.
“And that’s part of what I do on a daily basis, just educating people and showing them the other side of pharmacy, whether it’s in the hospital, or in industry, or in education,” Ouabo says. “There’s so much more than pharmacists do.”
Perez describes the Pharmacy Practice Center “the perfect setting” for the parody video. She says the students – first-year Student Doctor Justene Kaborgu and second-year Student Doctors Ariana Paras and Yau Lee – provided a level of enthusiasm across the three and half hours of filming that would have been missing if it were just the two TUC alums and their co-workers taking part.
CSHP Theme Eyes Future of Pharmacy Profession
The video theme for 2024 is “Inspiring Innovation – Leading the Change,” which matches the theme for the CSHP Seminar this fall. The theme “centers around professionals who are creative and innovative in the ever-changing landscape of pharmacy,” according to the competition website.
Those submitting videos were asked to focus on key elements they see as being the catalyst of future changes in the practice of pharmacy and how practitioners play a role in being proactive leaders.
Videos are judged by the CSHP Seminar Planning Committee and staff, with equal weight given to originality, creativity, relation to pharmacy, and entertainment. The seminar takes place Oct. 31 through Nov. 3 in Palm Springs.