Exploring intersectionality: an international yet individual issue

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores both reported and personal experiences of intersectionality within the healthcare system, which is often due to systemic inequalities as well as deep ingrained perceptions and opinions. With my perspective as both a medical student and rare disease patient battling generalised Myasthenia Gravis, I uncover and expose the aspects of intersectionality which are often brushed under the carpet. Moreover, I identify potential routes which we may collectively, as both clinicians and patients, embark upon to navigate our way out of this systemic snare. For those reading and engaging with this article, I endeavour to humanise the publicised figures surrounding rare disease and emphasise that within each figure there are patients, just like myself, who too may be experiencing the multifactorial issues arising from intersectionality. Furthermore, the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted and emphasised the pre-existing divide in the treatment of societal groups, for those both receiving and delivering care. We have long attempted to plaster over this chronic wound however the distressing outcomes of this pandemic have forced us to address this shameful truth from its core. Intersectionality is a disease which is destroying our healthcare system from within. However, unlike many rare diseases, intersectionality can be abolished.