From cleaning lady to healing doctor

Shay Taylor-Allen when she was janitor (left) and now a resident doctor at the same hospital. Images: The Washington Post.

You got a job in the hospital you were born in. You took care of the trash and cleaned the patient rooms for about 10 years. Now, you are all set to work at the same hospital, as a doctor. Is this a plot for the next Munnabhai MBBS movie? No, this is for real.

Shay Taylor-Allen was born in Yale New Haven Hospital, Connecticut, US in October 1993. She was raised by a single mother of three.

She was in the top 10 percent of her class when she graduated from high school in 2010. As no one in the family had been to college, she had no clue about the college application process. Might as well start earning. 

When she got the job as a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital, Taylor-Allen was 18. The work kept her very busy but the rewarding bit for her was the opportunity to connect with patients.

“I think a lot of patients come in with mistrust of doctors and nurses, so they build trust with service workers because they feel like they’re one of us,” Taylor-Allen told The Washington Post. “Sometimes they just needed somebody to talk to about anything else in the world other than their sickness.”

Growing beyond a janitor

She finally started college in 2013 at Southern Connecticut State University and continued her janitorial job full time. When her mother was ill, Taylor-Allen also helped look after her younger brother. 

Shortly after she started college, there was a fire at her family home. Following this, for years, her mother had difficulty breathing. She repeatedly took her mother to, yes, Yale New Haven Hospital, but the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. “They would just write it off as mental illness,” Taylor-Allen said.

Hoping against hope, she emailed Marna P. Borgstrom, then the chief executive of Yale New Haven Hospital, as she had cleaned her office before.

Surprise! She got a response the same day. Borgstrom arranged several appointments for Taylor-Allen’s mother with a new medical team, and they diagnosed her with vocal cord dysfunction, a condition that causes airway obstruction. “She advocated for my mom,” Taylor-Allen said of Borgstrom. “Seeing advocacy first-hand truly pushed me to want to do it as well.”

All set to be a doctor

That experience prompted Taylor-Allen to apply to medical school. Though the college advisor was sceptical, Taylor-Allen was determined. She got her master’s degree at Connecticut’s Quinnipiac University to bolster her science background — all the while keeping her job as a janitor.

In 2019, she was rejected by more than 20 medical schools. That’s when she connected with Gena Foster, an assistant professor of medicine in hematology at Yale School of Medicine. Foster became Taylor-Allen’s mentor. Foster helped Taylor-Allen restructure her medical school application.

Taylor-Allen was eventually accepted at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. and began classes in 2021.

Back home and set to heal

During medical school, Taylor-Allen always hoped to return to New Haven and complete her residency at Yale. A rotation in anesthesia in November 2025, solidified her desire to work there.

She could not help jumping up and down in elation when she got the big news on March 20. “I am going to Yale!”

Taylor-Allen wants "to build a bridge between doctors and other service workers”. “When I was there as a janitor, I felt like I couldn’t speak to the doctors … they were so untouchable.”

In the Hindi movie Munnabhai MBBS, the hero does not become a doctor but heals people with love, the jadoo ki jhappi, the magical hug. Would Taylor-Allen go on to combine this magic with the more clinical version of medicine practiced in hospitals? Will she build the bridge as she wants to?

May she succeed! ​

Bridging the gap between the doctors, the support team and the patients for wholesome healing.

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Based on a story published in The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026/03/26/janitor-yale-medical-school-doctor/
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