Google Doodle celebrates the 151st birth anniversary of Russian Princess Vera Gedroits

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 151st birthday of Russian military surgeon, professor, poet, and author - Vera Gedroits. Born in a royal family and daughter to a Russian Prince, Princess Gedroits was the first female military surgeon in Russia, the first female professor of surgery, and the first woman to serve as a physician in the Imperial Palace of Russia. She took part in the Russo-Japan war of 1904 and later in World War I in 1914. She died in 1932 at the age of 61 due to uterine cancer. [caption id=“attachment_9543151” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Google Doodle[/caption] Google acknowledges her work and accomplishments in life by thanking her “for pushing the world of medicine forward, even with the odds stacked against you.”

Background

Born in April 1870 to Daria Konstantinovna Mikhau and Prince Ignatiy Ignatievich Gedroits, she was the middle child for five siblings. She also has a younger brother Seergi who died young and inspired her pen name Sergei Gedroits. Her father was of Lithuanian royal descent and in 1878 received the title of ‘Prince’ for him and his heirs. After taking part in a revolution and being found out, she managed to go to Switzerland and complete her medicinal education at the age of 22. She returned to Russia and begun working with the Red Cross. She would go on to take part in the Russo-Japanese war and even in World War I, working at the frontlines as a surgeon. During her time at war, she saw and operated on many abdominal and chest wounds, amputations, facial and tendon reconstructions, intestinal resection, hysterectomy, skull trepanation, and setting bones. She would be considered an expert in cases of bone tuberculosis, infection, and inguinal hernia, she also published studies in surgeries for obstetrics, the thyroid gland, and tumours. After the war with Japan, Gedroits received royal recognition and in 1909 was appointed as a senior “ordinator” at the hospitals at the Tsarskoe Selo Palace and the Pavlovsk Palace. She was also a pediatric physician and tended to the children of the imperial family. She would stay there till she was called upon for the first world war. After the war, Gedroits then returned to Kiev and was appointed professor of surgery at the University of Kiev untill 1929. She was removed from her post and spent for the remainder of her life as a author of fictionalized autobiographies.