New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen, a Howard University School of Medicine student and former a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital for a decade, was recently selected for a residency at the hospital.
Contributed by Shay Taylor-Allen
New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen, a Howard University School of Medicine student and former a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital for a decade, was recently selected for a residency at the hospital.
Contributed by Shay Taylor-Allen
New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen, a Howard University School of Medicine student and former a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital for a decade, was recently selected for a residency at the hospital.
Contributed by Shay Taylor-Allen
New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen, a Howard University School of Medicine student and former a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital for a decade, was recently selected for a residency at the hospital.
Contributed by Mercedes Grullon
Howard University School of Medicine student and New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen, left, is shown with her mother Shema Hobby in 2024.
Contributed by Rob Allen
New Haven native Shay Taylor-Allen received her Yale New Haven Hospital janitorial services ID when she first started studying at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 2021.
Contributed by Shay Taylor-Allen
NEW HAVEN — Shay Taylor-Allen, a city native, spent a decade as a janitor at Yale New Haven Health, while she earned several degrees, preparing her for a career in medicine.
Now the life of Taylor-Allen, 32, who was born at Yale, will come full circle in June, when she starts her four-year supervised training in anesthesiology at the hospital.
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The moment she found out she would be doing her residency at Yale was captured on video. More than 7,000 people have seen her complete joy as she jumps up and down holding the letter and screaming as her family comes up and hugs her.
“People got to feel every emotion in that video,” she said.
The attention came as a complete surprise.
“I didn’t expect this much at all,” she said. “I know a lot of people love this story of starting from the bottom and making your way up.”
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Taylor-Allen will receive her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., in early May.
The video was taken outside Howard during the residency day white coat ceremony, when medical students don a long coat instead of their usual short ones, she said, signifying the next step in their medical career journey.
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That’s when students find out which hospital they’ve been matched with. The process, she added, is “extremely competitive,” and many aren’t selected.
Taylor-Allen interviewed at many hospitals. Afterward, they rank applicants on a number system. Her first choice was Yale — and Yale’s No. 1 choice was her.
She likened the process to searching for a potential love interest online.
“It’s like a dating thing,” she added. “If we love each other, we match together.”
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Her mother was particularly overjoyed, Taylor-Allen said.
“I don’t think she thought anything of my story of starting off as a janitor and her getting sick,” Taylor-Allen said. “I don’t think she thought this much would come of it, but she’s extremely proud and so happy that I continued on to this world.”
Taylor-Allen explained her story on the application, but her acceptance was based on other factors, including her personal statement, how much research she conducted and grades.
She started her janitorial job at 18 while majoring in biology at Southern Connecticut State University. She earned her master’s degree in biological sciences at Quinnipiac University, and started medical school in 2021.
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Taylor-Allen admits to being embarrassed about her job at the time. Later, her husband advised her never to be ashamed of what she did.
“That was part of your story that made you who you are,” she said he told her.
Every employee in a hospital is vital to the organization, she added.
“Keeping the hospital clean is what keeps the doors open,” Taylor-Allen said. “Without us, the hospital wouldn’t be running, so it taught me to respect and understand every position within the hospital. That’s going to make me the best doctor because I’ll show that respect to every position.”
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She was inspired to enter the field while a sophomore in college, when her mother became severely injured.
“She had third-degree burns in her lungs from a house fire that we had a few years prior,” Taylor-Allen said. “We took her to the ER and they asked us if she had a history of mental illness.”
Taylor-Allen said she didn’t understand why they kept asking about mental illness, when she knew her mother was sick and didn’t have a history of mental illness.
That’s when she set out to conduct research about health care disparities. She reached out to Yale’s CEO, who she knew from cleaning her offices.
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“She advocated for my mom, got her on a new team, and that’s when they diagnosed her with vocal cord dysfunction,” Taylor-Allen said. “Seeing the advocacy and seeing how much she helped, I knew I wanted to help other people that were in a similar situation.”
She has learned there are a great number of Americans who struggle with health care disparities and are often misdiagnosed.
“A lot of them get shut out or get silenced because the first thing they want to say is that it could be a mental illness instead of trying to figure out what’s going on with them,” Taylor-Allen said.
That’s what propelled her to go into medicine.
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“When it happened, I was so upset, and that anger fueled me into wanting to go into this career, as I want to make a change,” Taylor-Allen said.
Taylor-Allen’s experience speaks to a deeper message, she said.
She believes her story resonates because it’s the epitome of the American Dream.
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“They love hearing that story of starting from the bottom and making it to where you need to be,” she said. “That old saying of treating the janitor like the CEO is in full force here.”