Strength Behind the Smile

Dr. Chegini Transforms Adversity into Service…

Dr. Farnaz Chegini, owner of Chegini Family Dentistry, has been through much adversity, but you wouldn’t know it from her beautiful smile and friendly, calm demeanor. Her resiliency, faith and dedication to learning has motivated Chegini to give back to those in need by using her education and experience to give people beautiful smiles by way of compassionate healthcare. 

Originally from Tehran, Iran, Chegini was raised in Germany, and went back to Iran as a teenager. She married a man when she was 19 and they went to America on tourist visas, staying with friends in Marin County. Being in the land of opportunity, Farnaz learned English from reading the Bible and became interested in all religions. 

Around this time, Chegini had an infected tooth and went to a clinic to have it treated. But instead of fixing the problem, the clinic just gave her antibiotics to numb the pain. What she really needed was a root canal, but the clinic was too understaffed to perform the surgery. Therefore, Chegini started studying dentistry and found a fellow dental student who gave her a root canal for free. 

The experience inspired Chegini to go back to the health clinic and volunteer as a sterile technician. One day when a dentist needed an assistant to help with an extraction surgery, Chegini jumped in. 

“I was fascinated by that,” she recalls. Chegini then got accepted into the Western University of Health Sciences in Southern California to study dentistry, one of the hardest schools to get into at the time. However, she failed her Gross Anatomy class and was dismissed. She was told she’d never be a dentist in America, and it didn’t help that her husband was not working, and they were living off her student loan. 

While in school, though, a domestic violence support group came and talked to her class. It was the first time she had ever heard that term, which identified what she was experiencing at home. Her ex wanted her to go back to Iran, but she knew it would make her situation worse, so she fled with her son back up to Marin County. 

She tried to make the relationship work, but he served her with divorce papers. Her family fully supported the annulment, and two days later, Western University invited her back. 

“I looked at it as, I have this second chance; I’m going to make the best of it, be the best I could be,” Chegini says. She graduated from Western University as a Doctor of Medical Dentistry in 2017.

Following her graduation, Chegini decided to do a residency in North Carolina to learn how to do dental implants. She loved surgery ever since seeing that tooth extraction years ago and didn’t like just taking out people’s teeth and replacing them with dentures. “A person with dentures can eat 10 percent of what we can eat; they lost weight, and it makes them unhappy. It broke my heart when I had to remove people’s teeth and put in dentures,” she says.

However, considering bacteria in the mouth can lead to many health issues like colon cancer and diabetes, something had to be done. “So, learning implants was very rewarding. People were driving from all over the East Coast to get this treatment,” she adds. 

After completing her residency, Chegini applied for roles at veterans hospitals across the country. A friend back in Marin County told her about an opportunity with a VA in Northern California and encouraged her to reach out. 

She flew to Redding for an in-person interview with the VA, and Dr. Rebecca Neill picked her up from the airport and gave her a tour of the area. With its access to the outdoors and slower paced lifestyle, Chegini started her new role with the VA in 2019. 

While dental school taught Chegini the skills she needed to perform her job, the VA taught her a lot about managing people. She says she loved her job, but the dynamics between the patients, employees and navigating the governmental healthcare system could be challenging. 

Then one of her fellow dentist friends, Dr. Trusas, passed away, and she volunteered to see his patients until someone bought his practice. A friend suggested that Chegini buy the practice, which she had never even considered as a possibility. While someone else bought it, it got Chegini thinking. 

Chegini imagined having a dentist practice with a spa-like atmosphere, a place people looked forward to going to. Then the Cass Family Dentistry on 3320 Churn Creek Road in Redding came available, with ample space and rooms fully built out with massage chairs, small flatscreen TVs built into the ceilings, and state-of-the-art equipment.

She bought the practice in August 2024 and has been improving it ever since, such as utilizing the ability to do same-day crowns and installing sleep apnea machines to further study the effects of undiagnosed cases.

“The great thing about going to Western University, doing that residency, and working at the VA is that I learned to really look at the whole health of the patient. We have access to all their medical history — we can look at their bloodwork, past surgeries, even therapy sessions,” she says. “I want to know how we can make you healthier, not just what’s going on in your mouth,” she adds. 

Also, having survived an abusive relationship for so long, Chegini has a lot of empathy for women who have been in similar relationships. Always focused on giving back, in April 2025, she partnered with One Safe Place and gave free dental care to 27 women and children. She is planning a bigger event on February 6, 2026, where she and two fellow dentists will volunteer to treat more children and women who don’t have access to dental care. 

Committed to continuous education, serving her community, and helping those around her better themselves, Chegini was a youth leader at Pathway Church and is an active member of organizations such as SPEAR Education and the Christian Medical and Dental Association. At Chegini Family Dentistry, she even created a membership plan to make preventative and proactive dental care more accessible and affordable than navigating the complicated world of insurance. 

“I want to give people confidence with their smile and with this membership plan, you save more money than paying for insurance that you’re not getting,” Chegini says. 

“I want people to come here and have a team that treats each person like they’re your family,” she says. Relieving people’s pain as well as restoring their health and confidence keeps Chegini going, and it’s safe to say that she’s succeeded in bringing smiles to many faces in the North State.  •

Chegini Family Dentistry
www.cheginifamilydentistry.com