Shay Taylor-Allen’s dreams came true on March 20. The Howard University College of Medicine student was matched into the anesthesiology residency program at Yale New Haven Hospital—the same hospital where she was born and later worked as a janitor for 10 years.
In an emotional clip on TikTok, Taylor-Allen shared the moment she found out she had been matched at Yale. “#1 match and so happy to come back not as a janitor this time but as a doctor!” she captioned the video.
She told ABC News, “I was jumping up and down to the point I [thought] the concrete was going to break!”
Taylor-Allen’s mom inspires her journey
Back when she was just 18, Taylor-Allen took a job as a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital to earn extra money. At the time, she didn’t know she would later pursue a career as a doctor.
“I was working full-time as a janitor because around that time also my mom got sick, and she was in and out of hospital,” Taylor-Allen told People. “They couldn’t figure out what was going on with her.”
After years on the job, Taylor-Allen leveraged a connection she had made with the hospital’s CEO—whose trash she once emptied—according to ABC News. She reached out directly to ask for help with her mother’s care and finding a diagnosis.
“She got back to me literally within that same day because she knew me from cleaning her room,” Taylor-Allen said. “She was like, ‘We’re going to do whatever we can to help your mom. Let me figure out what’s going on with the team.’ And within the next week, they figured out that she had a vocal cord dysfunction and everything completely changed. It was just night and day.”
She decides to become a doctor herself
The experience led her to pursue a career as a doctor and future patient advocate. “I started Googling how to become a doctor and I just went on from there,” she added.
Taylor-Allen was accepted into Howard University College of Medicine in 2021 and is set to graduate in May 2026.
“I could have never imagined that I would be going back to the same hospital that I was not only born at, but a janitor at, to be a doctor,” she told ABC News.
To support Taylor-Allen in her journey, check out her GoFundMe.
