Measles Alert! An Update for Prevention

As the Chief Medical Officer for Migrant Clinicians Network, Laszlo Madaras, MD, MPH is responsible for the oversight of MCN clinical activities. He also serves as a subject matter expert for various topics in migrant and immigrant health including COVID-19. Over the last 30 years, in parts of Africa, Central America, South America, the Pacific Islands, and the United States, Dr. Madaras has served thousands for wide-ranging ailments, including newly emerging diseases.  

Dr. Madaras arrived to in the United States as a Hungarian refugee in 1968 at the age of seven and eventually became a US citizen. Dr. Madaras received his MD and MPH from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1993. Early experiences include working as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow in pediatrics in Gabon, West Africa; as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Congo; and as a pesticide review manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency. He worked on the Congo/Rwandan border during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and on the Hungarian border with the former Yugoslavia in 1995.  

Since 1996, Dr. Madaras has been a board-certified family physician in both inpatient and outpatient medicine in Pediatrics, Adult Medicine, and Obstetrics. He served as a frontline clinician at the Keystone Health Center where he cared for farmworkers and their families and became Assistant Medical Director from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, he became a hospitalist in Chambersburg and Waynesboro Hospitals in south central Pennsylvania, where he continues to work part time. In 2016, he became a Senior Fellow of Hospital Medicine. In 2020, he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. 

In addition, Dr. Madaras has worked as a staff physician in Tuberculosis control at the Pennsylvania State Health Department since 2012, and regularly teaches US-based medical students on an international health rotation in Honduras. Dr. Madaras also teaches hospital medicine to Penn State nurse practitioner and physician assistant students and medical residents at Summit Health.  

Renai Edwards, MPH (she/her/ella) comes to MCN after many years working at city, county, state, national, and international government agencies in infectious disease prevention, control, and surveillance programs, with a focus on community education and training for clinicians and clinic staff. Her specialties include HIV/STI/sexual health, tuberculosis, refugee/immigrant health, maternal child health, and strategic planning with justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as the base. 

She began her career as a health extension volunteer in the Peace Corps in Honduras, where she learned about the day-to-day life of people, and the push/pull factors that cause them to migrate. Since then, she has incorporated health equity, cultural humility, and language access into her programs, while pushing government agencies to improve in those areas as well.  

Edwards holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of New Mexico, and Bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and Hispanic studies from the University of Michigan. She loves to cook food from around the world, hiking with her dog Mocha, and has recently taken up genealogy to learn more about her family history.