Medical student Shay Taylor-Allen was standing outside Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium with her family when she got the news: She had matched for an anesthesiology residency at Yale New Haven Hospital.
“I’m going to Yale!” she shouted, jumping up and down.
By now you’ve probably seen the March 20 video of her Match Day moment, which went viral not only because of her joy, but for the inspiring story behind it. The New Haven, Connecticut, native was born at Yale New Haven Hospital and spent 10 years working there as a janitor, from 2011 to 2021. Her story has captured the hearts of people across the country, with an article in USA Today, and appearances on NBC Nightly News, ABC News, and NBC Connecticut.
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The daughter of a single mom of three, Taylor-Allen graduated high school and began working at the hospital at the age of 18 to help support her family. She enrolled at Southern Connecticut State University in 2013. One night, a candle blew over and started a fire in her family’s home. Her mother, Shema Hobbs, suffered third-degree burns on her lungs and was left with lingering health issues.
“She literally kept saying she felt like she was breathing through a straw, and it felt like her throat was closing,“ Taylor-Allen recalls.
The family’s dismissive encounters with medical staff at Yale New Haven Hospital left them searching for answers. On a whim, Taylor-Allen emailed Marna P. Borgstrom, who was then the CEO of Yale New Haven Hospital, to ask for help with her mother’s case. She had occasionally cleaned the executive’s office. Borgstrom responded the same day and offered her assistance. Taylor-Allen’s mother soon had a new care team and a diagnosis of vocal cord dysfunction.
Seeing the power of advocacy gave Taylor-Allen a new sense of direction. “I literally started Googling ‘What are the steps to become a doctor?’ because I didn’t know what it took,” she says. She completed a master’s degree at Quinnipiac University to strengthen her chances.
Although she did not get into medical school on her first try, she found a mentor at Yale School of Medicine who helped improve her application. Her second attempt saw her accepted to five different medical schools in 2021. “I decided that I wanted to try something different and go to an HBCU instead. And that’s when I decided on Howard,” she says.
As a student at Howard University College of Medicine, Taylor-Allen has completed rotations in anesthesiology at Howard, the University of Michigan, and Yale. She graduates with her medical degree in May. These days, she is the person her family calls when they need help navigating the healthcare system.
“Being at Howard, being in DC has given me the confidence I needed for me to move on with my career. I think DC made me into the woman I am today,” she says.
The District has also given her more than just the foundation for a medical career: two years ago, she met her now-husband, Robert Allen, in their apartment building’s gym in Northeast DC. They married that same year.
As she prepares to move back home to New Haven, where her family still lives, Taylor-Allen hopes her experiences working as a janitor will guide her as a physician.
“Because I got to see every aspect of the hospital–of course being a janitor, my mom being a patient, and now me being a doctor–I think I can handle a lot of things with care, empathy and sympathy at the same time,” she says.
“I understand that all our jobs are important.”
Dara T. Mathis is a journalist and nonfiction writer who joined Washingtonian in Fall 2025 as an Editorial Fellow. A 2024 recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, she resides in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
