health
“I still can’t believe it,” said Shay Taylor Allen, who did a residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she was born and spent most of her adult life on the cleaning staff.
Taylor Allen on the first day of her third year at Howard University School of Medicine. Courtesy of Shay Taylor Allen
For nearly a decade, Shay Taylor Allen walked the halls of Yale New Haven Hospital pushing a janitor’s cart. She mopped patient rooms, disinfected surfaces, and emptied trash.
Soon she will be wandering the hospital halls again, this time wearing a white coat.
Taylor Allen, 32, recently completed her residency in anesthesiology at Yale New Haven Hospital — where she has spent most of her adult life working as part of the cleaning staff.
“I still can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s surreal.”
@shaytaylorallen #1 Match and very happy to be back not as a janitor this time but as a doctor! #MatchDay #medstudent #doctorsoftiktok ♬ 7 years latch – favsoundds
Taylor Allen’s association with Yale New Haven Hospital began in October 1993, when she gave birth in the hospital’s maternity ward.
She grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and was raised by a single mother of three. She graduated from Wilbur Cross High School in 2010 and was in the top 10% of her class. The school’s graduation rate, 77 percent, is well below the state average.
Taylor Allen said she had little guidance in school, and since no one in her family had gone to college, she wasn’t sure how to apply.
“My mom didn’t go to college, so she didn’t know anything about the application process or what I should do,” Taylor Allen said.
She started thinking about getting a job instead.
“I was just keen to have an income so I could support myself,” she said. “I wanted to take care of myself.”
She applied for some positions at Yale New Haven Hospital and got a job as a janitor when she was 18 years old.
“It’s been a lot of busy work,” she said.
But it was also rewarding, she said, because she enjoyed communicating with patients.
“I think a lot of patients come in and they don’t trust doctors and nurses, so they build trust with the service staff because they feel like they’re one of us,” Taylor Allen said. “Sometimes they just needed someone to talk to about anything else in the world other than their illness. We had to build rapport by getting to know who they were.”
But she was sure that it would not be her long-term career.
“I knew I wanted to do something other than be a janitor, but I didn’t know what that was,” Taylor Allen said.
She began college in 2013 at Southern Connecticut State University and continued her job as a full-time janitor. Her mother became ill, so Taylor Allen was also helping her care for her younger brother.
Shortly before Taylor Allen started college, her family’s home caught fire, and years later, her mother had trouble breathing.
“I explained it was like breathing through a straw,” Taylor Allen said.
Her mother was repeatedly taken to Yale New Haven Hospital, and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
“They wrote it off as mental illness,” Taylor Allen said. “This was the first time I learned about disparities in health care.”
She decided to email Marna B. Borgstrom, then CEO of Yale New Haven Hospital, where she had cleaned out her office before. She knew the chances of getting a response were slim.
“She emailed me during that day,” Taylor Allen said, adding that Borgstrom arranged several appointments for Taylor Allen’s mother with a new medical team, and they diagnosed her with vocal cord dysplasia, a condition that results in airway obstruction.
“She stood up for my mom,” Taylor Allen said of Borgstrom. “Seeing advocacy firsthand made me want to do it too.”
She decided to apply to medical school. When she told her college counselor about her goal of becoming a doctor, “He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t see that for you,’” Taylor Allen recalls.
Taylor Allen was not deterred. She earned a master’s degree from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut to bolster her science background — all while maintaining her job as a janitor.
When it came time to apply to medical school in 2019, she was initially rejected by more than 20 schools to which she applied. That’s when she connected with Gina Foster, MD, assistant professor of medicine in hematology at Yale University School of Medicine, and Foster became Taylor Allen’s mentor.
“I remember talking to her and being so impressed with her,” Foster said, explaining that she met Taylor Allen through an online mentoring website. “She’s very hardworking, she’s very smart, she’s very humble.”
Foster helped Taylor Allen restructure her medical school application.
“It’s impossible for someone to go to medical school and become a doctor without mentoring,” Foster said. “It’s crucial.”
Taylor Allen was waitlisted at Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., but was eventually accepted and began classes in 2021.
“It’s really amazing to see her come this far and accomplish all of this,” Foster said. “I don’t know if anyone understands how hard it was to achieve what she accomplished and get out of it…it’s extraordinary.”
While in medical school, Taylor Allen said she always hoped to return to New Haven and complete her residency at Yale. She did a course in anesthesiology last November, which cemented her desire to work there.
“This is my home,” she said. “I definitely felt like this was the right place for me.”
While Taylor Allen was hopeful she would be able to land a suitable opportunity at Yale, she said she was completely shocked when she learned the news on Match Day, March 20 — when graduating medical students across the country learned where they would complete their residencies. A video of her opening the newspaper revealing her residency captures her jubilation.
“I’m going to Yale,” she shouted, jumping up and down in her high heels. the video He has nearly 7 million views on TikTok, and Today.com wrote About Taylor Allen.
Foster said she is thrilled to have Taylor Allen – who has become a mentor to many prospective medical students – back at Yale.
“I still can’t talk about it without crying,” Foster said. “She’s going to be my teammate. It’s so cool. I’m so excited.”
Shima Hobby, Taylor Allen’s mother, said she was also emotional, especially since her daughter’s decision to become a doctor stems from the challenges she faces in the health care field.
“For her to be there and see how I was treated, and to now want to continue to help others…it was truly a blessing to have her go down this path,” Hobby said, noting that her daughter inspired her to go back to school and earn her associate’s degree. “I’m thrilled to see what you’ve done.”
Taylor Allen said her past will shape how she approaches her job.
“I want to build a bridge between doctors and other service workers,” she said. “When I was there as a janitor, I felt like I couldn’t talk to the doctors…they were completely untouchable.”
She said she hopes her story will motivate others to strive for their own goals, even if they seem unattainable.
“If you work hard, you can get to where you want to be. And I think I’m proof of that,” Taylor Allen said.
Additional news alerts
Get breaking updates as they happen.