Introduction. Medicine in North America is widely perceived as a healing institution devoted to human welfare, yet this framing obscures its historical and ongoing role in perpetuating gendered colonial violence.
Methods. This commentary analyses the intersections of race, gender, and colonialism in Canadian and American health care systems, examining how colonial medical frameworks position racialized populations as the “Other”.
Results. Colonial medical frameworks systematically devalue racialized populations through intersecting mechanisms. Whiteness and heteropatriarchy establish the white male body as the normative standard, excluding women and racialized groups from research and clinical decision- making. For populations facing intersecting systems of oppression, these harms compound: Indigenous women’s access to regular healthcare providers declined from 75 percent (2015) to 48 percent (2020), while Black women face higher cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality alongside persistent undertreatment. The patriarchal and white-centred foundations of healthcare are structurally embedded and perpetuate gendered colonial violence.
Conclusion. Recognising medicine’s entanglement with systemic harm is essential to dismantling the colonial structures that continue to shape health systems. Confronting these legacies requires addressing the intersections of race, gender, and colonialism through sustained efforts to decolonize medicine and rebuild health systems rooted in equity and justice.