CANFP Welcomes Dr. Michel Accad to Executive Board

Can you tell us a little about yourself, Dr. Accad?

That’s always a tough question! At the risk of giving you a somewhat generic answer, I can tell you that I was born in Lebanon, spent my adolescent years in France, and then moved to the United States for my college education. I went to medical school in Houston and came to San Francisco for additional training in cardiovascular medicine. I accumulated a great deal of clinical experience working in various clinical setting before opening my own private office. I practice internal medicine and cardiology and strive to provide truly personal service to patients. The practice motto is “Medicine for the Whole Person,” an attempt to offer an alternative to the highly fragmented and, in many ways, “un-natural” modern medical practice. On the personal side, I met my wife here is San Francisco. We are blessed with two children age 4 and 1.5. My wife and I both had a strong “reversion” to our Catholic faith a few years ago. We attend St. Brendan parish in San Francisco.

Thank you for accepting the invitation to serve on the board of CANFP! Tell us, as a busy physician and father of young children, what inspired you to share your precious time in this capacity?

I strongly believe in CANFP’s mission. From a medical standpoint, it is clear that hormonal contraception is unhealthy and sometimes very dangerous, yet very few women or couples know that there is a healthy way to participate in family planning. And if we are to talk about the “whole person,” CANFP promotes an approach that is healthy not only physically, but psychologically and spiritually as well.

What has impressed you most about CANFP?

I am very impressed that CANFP understands NFP so well. The organization has been around for more than twenty years, and the accumulated experience is extraordinarily rich. CANFP is in a unique position to be able to help women and men individually, but also to help promote NFP broadly to the public.

What do you hope to see CANFP accomplish in your term on the Executive Board?

Promoting NFP is very broad, since NFP is in essence “counter-cultural” and CANFP aims at helping change the culture in regards to how men and women approach the sexual relationship in the context of marriage, keeping in mind the woman’s natural fertility and the couple’s need for marital fulfillment. That’s the overall goal. When the mission is very broad, one has to be mindful not to get lost, bogged down, or discouraged. It is important to have practical, tangible short and medium-term tasks and projects since progress on the overall goal may not be easy to measure day-to-day.

What do you see as the most important task facing CANFP in the coming years?

I hope CANFP will continue to develop its very effective outreach activities whereby its staff, board members, and core volunteers, who are all very effective advocates for NFP, can directly speak to communities and parishes to spread the good news. CANFP can also continue to develop targeted education programs for specific groups such as clergy, school teachers, pre-marriage counselors, etc. I plan to help develop and participate in specific educational programs for the San Francisco area, so I hope that over time the effort will bear fruit.