Reihaneh Ghoreishi came to American from Iran in 2008. She was a dentist in Iran and moved to the Chicago area. She graduated from Kerman University in Kerman City, Kerman Iran in 1993.
“When I graduated I started working as an assistant teacher in a clinic. It was at the school I went to up to 1996. Then I moved to Isfahan and started working at the Social Security Hospital” Ghoreishi said. “Every city has one or two main hospitals and a clinic which is related to the Social Security Clinic. With insurance they get everything free if you go to those clinics or hospitals” Ghoresishi explained.
She said she left Iran because she has two girls and wanted them to get a better education. Most of her family came here many years before and it was hard for her to make the decision to start over without anything and bring her daughters to America. Her husband came here with her but left the U.S. and went back to Iran.
When she first came to America she worked as a cashier at the Mobil Gas Station in Lake Forest at the Oasis over I-294. “The only job I could get was at a gas station for a year” she said.
While working at the gas station she noticed a man with one leg was trying to get gas at the pump and Ghoreishi could see his hand was shaking while holding the pump. Ghoreishi could tell he was going into diabetic shock. She recognized what was happening because of all her medical experience and grabbed a candy bar and ran out and gave it to him. She said she also knew he needed to come inside and helped him get into his wheelchair. She told him he needed a soda as well. The man she had just helped decided to argue over a dime inside the store while paying for the soda right after she told him she had given him the candy bar for free. She asked him to pay for the soda. The whole thing was captured on surveillance cameras.
Her manager said to her later ‘ this is not a hospital’, Ghoreishi stated. She said her manager had watched the whole thing on video and could not understand the man arguing over the dime at the cash register after all that had happened.
Ghoreishi was the youngest in a family of 12 children and grew up in a town called Isfahan. Her mother didn’t work and her father owned a Travel Agency. Her father also owned land where he paid farmers to work and gave them produce.
Her father built showers in the center of Khorasgan city in Esfahan. When Ghoreishi was a child people did not have showers in their homes in the area of Iran where they lived. She said now they do but her father wanted to help the town so he built the showers. There were six boys and six girls in her family. One set of twins, a boy and a girl was born to the family.
In Iran everyone takes a placement test for college while they are in high school. The test can be taken at any age, according to Ghoreishi. Results of the test were published in the newspaper and they also mail the results to test takers. She said there were 10 pages in the newspaper dedicated solely to the test results in her hometown there to let everyone know the test results.
Ghoreishi wanted to go to medical school. After the form arrived for her to select what schools she would like to attend along with her test scores, she chose medical schools. Her score was very high. Ghoreishi filled out the form in pencil for the computer to scan.
Her brother offered to take care of the form for her. Ghoreishi said her brother then changed her choices on the form to say she wanted to go to dental school instead of medical school before he mailed it for her. He later told her he thought it would be better for her because of the hours doctors work.
She said she got a notice she would have to wait to attend medical school because the computer had matched her to dental schools and that is how she ended up getting a dental degree.
Ghoreishi now works as a dental assistant in the Chicago area and in retail. One day she hopes to get her dental license in America and work as a dentist here.
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