Vera Gedroitz

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Princess Vera Ignatievna Giedroyc (Russian: Вера Игнатьевна Гедройц, 7 April 1876 - summer 1932) was a Lithuanian princess, Russian-Ukrainian surgeon and amateur poet.

Giedroyc belonged to a Lithuanian princely clan which shared its origins with the more famous Radziwill family. She was born in Kiev into the Russian-speaking milieu and was trained to be a surgeon at the University of Lausanne.

Her work in laparotomies during the Russo-Japanese War was among the first to achieve a high success rate. This led the Russian army to adopt the procedure, and caused the notions the correct treatment of penetrating abdominal wounds to change.

In 1909 Giedroyc was transferred to the court hospital in Tsarskoe Selo, where she worked as a surgeon to the imperial family. At that time she joined the Poets' Guild, publishing her poems under the pen name "Sergei Giedroyc".

After the October Revolution she did not flee the country (as many her relatives did) but settled in Kiev with her lover, Countess Maria Nierodt.^[1] She died of cancer and was buried in her native city.