Mills later worked in Lebanon and established the country's first nursing school, and helped to combat treatable diseases.
She is the recipient of several awards including the National Order of the Cedar, and was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 2012.
She planned to study law but later decided to focus on nursing after reading a letter that suggested it would provide an income that would allow her to do what she desired.
[4] During her period in the position, she organized and established Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Children’s Ward in the country's primary government hospital, and began immunization stations and health centers.
[3] Mills also worked at a clinic in Chtoura, where she taught nursing and assisted in the effort to combat treatable diseases which affected the country's rural population.
She was awarded a scholarship to further her skill in Arabic at School For International Studies and took her classes in Washington, D.C.[5] Mills later adopted a second child.
[4] She later was assigned to South Vietnam, Cambodia and Chad where she provided health education, nursing care, and worked in smallpox and malaria eradication campaigns.
Mills traveled to Finland, Germany and Denmark to study their national health care systems and returned ideas that could be used within the United States.
She also represented the United States at international conferences relating to nursing, midwifery and public health in Europe, Canada and Australia.
[4] Mills purchased a Washington theater group which raised capital for the Shiloh-Columbia Volunteer Fire Department.
[6] She was profiled by author Mary Elizabeth Carnegie in her 1995 book The Path We Tread: Blacks in Nursing Worldwide.