DR. TOM DOOLEY
AFTER MUONG SING, LAOS
Dr. Tom Dooley

          Dooley stayed on at Muong Sing after Rhine and Davis went back to the United States in April 1960. After they left, Dooley helped establish and support MEDICO hospitals in other nations. Dooley published his third book in 1960 entitled The Night They Burned the Mountain.

Letter from Dooley
to his mother
April 7, 1960

          He also went back and forth from Laos to America for various speaking engagements in mainland America and Hawaii, and he traveled to other countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand to raise more money and gather resources. He helped a new doctor get started at Muong Sing and opened a new hospital in Ban Houei Sai, Laos.

Letter from Dooley
to Mildred Walden
September 14, 1960

          Dooley had many plans for the first months of 1961. In January, he planned to return to the United States and stay through the first week of February. Then he would meet his mother in Hong Kong. In March, he would be in various parts of Asia, and he would then go back to the United States for a lecture tour from April through June. He wrote his mother, telling her of these plans while he was in the hospital in Hong Kong in December 1960. Dooley entered the hospital in early December because of fatigue caused by the spread of cancer to his lungs, liver, spleen, heart, and brain.

Letter from Dooley
to his mother
December 1, 1960
However, these plans were never carried out. In December 1960, Dooley was sent to the Memorial Hospital in New York to be under the care of his own doctor and to be closer to family and friends. Dooley died on January 18, 1961, the day after his thirty-fourth birthday. His funeral was held January 23, 1961, at the St. Louis Cathedral. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.