Shi Meiyu stayed at the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Hospital for many years after its opening. She stayed for around 20 years. She continued to grow the hospital in Jiujiang by adding a nursing school. Nursing classes were taught in addition to the English and religion classes. Meiyu's motivations were in lowering the infant mortality rate. The nursing program gave the nursing students options in their career and the freedom to choose. She supervised these trainings and helped to translate the training manuals. At the same time, she supervised a home for cripples and adopted boys. 

Meiyu was described as being a charismatic speaker, and "no one could resist [her] persuasive tones." Her charm allowed her to raise lots of money to expand her medical practice. 

In 1819, she received the Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship which sent her to Johns Hopkins until 1919 for postgraduate work. Upon her return to in 1920, she moved to Shanghai. 

In Shanghai, she founded the the Shanghai Bethel Mission with Jennie V. Hughes, Meiyou's lifelong partner. 

The Bethel Mission built a hospital, several schools, orphanages, and even a training department for missionaries. The orphanages never turned away a single child and cared for at least 2,000 war orphaned children. The hospital boasted of 100 beds and five different orphanages. 

When Kang Cheng left Jiujiang, she moved to Nanchang to establish her own medical practice. Nanchang was less westernized than the cities Cheng had once lived in. Many citizens called her a foreigner. With funds from local beneficiaries, she started a small medical dispensary in 1903. 

"Can you imagine your sensations if patient after patient to whom you were called were clothed in their best official garments and were then laid out . . . ready to breathe their last? That was the situation I faced in this huge old town of Nanchang simply because it had no people who believed in Western medicine. No wonder my servant said I had no talent, and I was ready to believe it too, for how could I revive these dying women?"

In Nanchang, she lived in economic turmoil while balancing paying rent and paying for medicines to give to patients. Eventually, more donors helped her financially. 

In 1908, she also studied literature at Northwestern University. She also earned an honorary's masters degree from the University of Michigan. 

She worked alongside her adoptive mother, Howe, to raise money in the U.S. by throwing banquets. One such banquet was for Sun Yat-sen. These banquets allowed her to run and expand her hospital successfully. 

Political and war turmoil with the Guomindang (GMD) Party challenged her loyalties to the local government and to her faith. She would allow GMD troops to be treated at her compound. She also ensured her hospital was a refuge for war victims. Her house was a "talisman throughout the city, a byword for safety." During these times of fighting, her hospital treated thousands of refugees and wounded soldiers. 

When the fighting continued, Cheng and Howe were abandoned by all the missionaries. Unfortunately, soldiers invaded her compound, insulting her property, her nurses, and Cheng herself. 

Cheng continued to defend herself and argued that she was a true Nationalist. 

In 1931, Cheng became sick with what was described as abdominal cancer. The cancer was so bad that it "had spread down into her legs until one of her thigh bones broke... It is clear that Kang was in a great deal of pain before her death." 

Even in excruciating pain that could have also been kidney failure or liver disease, she treated other patients until her death. She was seen being carried up and down the stairs to treat patients.