Clinical Research Coordinator II
Massachusetts General Hospital/Mongan Institute
Loretta O. Akpala was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. She moved to the United States in 2006 to attend college and subsequently pursue a career in medicine. She earned her medical degree from the University of Medicine and Health Sciences in St. Kitts and Nevis. In 2021, she joined the lab of Dr. Benjamin Bearnot, an addiction medicine clinician-investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, to study the characteristics and treatment needs of people with substance use disorders and infectious complications of injection drug use. Her clinical interests also
include the integration of behavioral and primary care medicine to increase addiction care access for underserved patient populations.
She believes an integrative approach will streamline optimal addiction treatment, substance use recovery maintenance and relapse prevention. In June 2022, Loretta will begin residency training in family medicine.
