Book Review : The Juggling Act: Harmonizing Career, Faith, Family, and Entrepreneurship

Title : The Juggling Act: Harmonizing Career, Faith, Family, and Entrepreneurship
Author : Author: Bisrat Hailemeskel
Publisher: Amazon, USA
Year of Publication: July 2025
324 pp.

Review by Fekadu Fullas, PhD”

A Reflection; pp 26-28

“Having been a friend of Bisrat for over 30 years now, and spending innumerable occasions with him chatting about family, academic career and other matters, I had had a glimpse into the interesting life of this extraordinary man.

Professor Bisrat is a success story unto himself, starting from his humble beginnings in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is as devoted to academic matters as he is to diversification of life’s various trajectories. He is a daring person who had tried his hands on opportunities that came his way early on in Ethiopia and later in the USA. He is indeed adept at “juggling” commitments. In this book, Bisrat sets the stage of his early life in elementary school education and then progresses through high school and college, interlacing it with his family stories and drawbacks.

Against all odds and uncertainties, he navigated through the difficult terrains of life. He was educated at the then-reputable General Wingate School and then Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. His academic performance while at Wingate, Addis Ababa University School of Pharmacy and later at the Chemistry Graduate program in Addis was superlative and full of distinctions.

The book is divided into five chapters which deal with aspects of his family and faith, education, employment, entrepreneurship and giving back, in that order. True to his educator’s mindset, he ends each chapter with a set of questions which readers can ponder on and answer for themselves after reading the pertinent chapters. I found this approach to be novel, very distinctive and instructive, as well.

In the first chapter, he writes abundantly how his Christian faith carried him through family tragedies and how he bounced back. He narrates about his mother, father, step-father, grandparents, siblings and cousins who all had a huge impact in their own respective ways on his thoughts and future life. The story of Bisrat starting his own family is equally captivating.

He dedicates Chapter Two to his educational odyssey starting in elementary school and then progressing through General Wingate High School. The later days were rough and tsunamic, with the Development through Cooperation Students’ Campaign (Zemecha) in full swing but marred by turbulent political upheaval. I can relate to the period myself since I was a junior in college at that time. Bisrat survived those grueling times and proceeded to college, where he earned his degree in Pharmacy. After a few jobs, he enrolled in the graduate program in the Chemistry Department at Addis Ababa University and obtained an MSc degree.

He found a way to immigrate to the USA and got a license as a pharmacist. He then went back to school to get a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree. He closes the chapter by writing about his clinical pharmacy jobs at two hospitals in Peoria, Illinois.

In Chapter Three, among other things, he eloquently walks through how he joined an academic institution in Washington, D.C. as an Assistant Professor and through time climbing up the ladder to a Full Professor position. Typical of his general style of writing in the book, Bisrat tells anecdotes which add flavor to his autobiography.

Chapter Four is replete with entrepreneurial moves. What spurred this venture was the delay in his university tenure. He dived into uncharted waters by opening a pharmacy technician training and nurse aides’ school. Bisrat prides himself, and rightly so, in graduating a whopping 3,000 students from his program, and later a few went to earn Pharm.D. and others became licensed nurses and nurse practitioners. He also writes about how he got into the real estate business, and after a few trials and tribulations along the way he was able to own successful rental properties.

In Chapter Five, which he titled as “Giving Back” Professor Bisrat traces his initial involvement in Ethiopian pharmacy education through a well-established physicians’ group. He also outlines how the first-of-its-kind Drug Information Center was established in Ethiopia through his initiation. Bisrat was instrumental in starting the first MSc and Ph.D. programs in clinical pharmacy, with the latter being the first of its kind in Africa. This is indeed a big accomplishment by all standards.

In sum, this book by Professor Bisrat is inspirational and serves as a model for the coming generation of pharmacy practitioners. His story combines faith and steely determination. He is indeed an expert in the Juggling Act—faith, family commitment, academic career, entrepreneurship and giving back, all rolled into one.

My hats off to you, friend!

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