Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 3

“We moved to Canada nine and half years ago, when my daughter was six months old. My wife was a hard-working dentist, very talented. She was my teacher. I often told her, ‘You are better than me.’” Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion told Matt Galloway in an interview on CBC Radio in February, a month after he lost his wife and daughter. Dr. Parisa Eghbalian was born in 1977 in Iran and, in 2001, graduated from Tabriz University of Medical Science. She married her dental school classmate, Dr. Esmaeilion, in early 2001. She worked as an associate for nine years before immigrating to Canada in 2010 with her husband and daughter, Reera. Soon after coming to Canada, Dr. Eghbalian successfully completed the equivalency process and obtained her dentistry license. Since 2011, she practised as an associate in cities across Southern Ontario, including Hanover, Guelph and Toronto. In 2017, she and her husband opened their own practice, Aurora E&E Dentistry, in Aurora. Dr. Eghbalian also worked at the Dawson Dental Centre in Guelph. Her patients described her as kind, caring, and knowledgeable. Dr. Eghbalian and her daughter were traveling home to Canada after attending an engagement party for Dr. Eghbalian’s sister. On CBC radio, Dr. Esmaeilion spoke with grief but also pride in his voice when he described his wife and daughter. “Several times, Reera asked me why we moved to Canada,” he said. “I wanted to be away from war, from tensions. She understood that.” He said that it was difficult to be in an empty house, alone with his memories. “We were a happy family in Canada.” Dr. Parisa Eghbalian: Dentist fromRichmondHill Dr. Sharieh Faghihi: Dentist fromHalifax “Sharieh came to Canada so that her children could have better lives, and she succeeded in doing that,” says Dr. EbrahimKiani-Moghadam, a dentist in Halifax who was once Dr. Shariah Faghihi’s student in Iran. Dr. Sharieh Faghihi’s son has a PhD in computer science and her daughter is finishing her degree in pharmacy. At 16, Dr. Faghihi began studying at the Tehran University School of Dentistry, and she graduated in 1985. She met her husband in 1986. She specialized in periodontology, graduating with a masters in 1989, before becoming an academic in addition to practising dentistry. She taught for 24 years and became head of the periodontics department and head of research at the Shiraz University of Medical Science in Shiraz, Iran. Dr. Kiani-Moghadam was her student at Shiraz University in 1994. “She was one of the best periodontists and implant surgeons, and one of the kindest and most generous teachers I’ve ever had,” he says. In 2011, Dr. Kiani- Moghadam was reacquainted with Dr. Faghihi, who immigrated that year with her family, in Toronto as they both went through the National Dental Examining Board of Canada process for internationally trained dentists. “We did all this work to qualify for 2 years together in Toronto, then we were both accepted at Dalhousie for 2014,” says Dr. Kiani-Moghadam. “She was one of those people who is a perfectionist and works hard to do things really well,” says Dr. Cynthia Andrews, who was one of Dr. Faghihi’s professors at Dalhousie. “But she didn’t have a Type-A personality, she was very gentle and humble.” Dr. Andrews worked with Dr. Faghihi as a faculty adviser on a research project poster contest (in which Dr. Faghihi won second prize) to help Dr. Faghihi with her spoken English. The two dentists got to know each other. “We talked about dentistry and our families. She was so proud of her children. She had a very happy, close family life,” says Dr. Andrews. When Dr. Faghihi graduated in 2016, Dr. Andrews asked if she would be interested in teaching part time. “I was blown away by her resume. She wasn’t someone to brag, but she’d published, had extensive teaching experience, undergrad and graduate periodontics.” Dr. Faghihi taught undergraduate periodontics as a part-time instructor at Dalhousie and worked at several dental clinics in Halifax, including Gladstone Dental Centre. Dr. Faghihi was visiting her mother in Iran. Dr. Kiani-Moghadam says that he will remember her laughter. “She was a wonderful dentist, teacher, wife, mother and friend,” he says. “She made everything she was part of better.” Dr. Parisa Eghbalian and her daughter Reera. Dr. Sharieh Faghihi. I ssues and P eople 23 Issue 3 | 2020 |