Dooley, Thomas

Dooley, Thomas (Anthony, III)

(1927–61) physician, author; born in St. Louis, Mo. He interrupted his education to serve as a U.S. Navy medical corpsman (1944–46); after taking his medical degree, he served with the U.S. Navy (1953–56). Assigned to a ship helping Vietnamese fleeing north to south, he set up a refugee camp near Haiphong; his account of this work, Deliver Us from Evil (1956), gained him national attention. He resigned from the navy and went to Laos where he established two medical clinics; his account of this experience, The Edge of Tomorrow (1958), plus his lectures, attracted still more financial support for his efforts. He helped found the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) and returned to set up other clinics in Southeast Asia; he wrote about one in Laos in The Night They Burned the Mountain (1960). He died prematurely of cancer.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.