Varvara Rudneva

Varvara Kashevarova Rudneva (1844–1899), was a Russian physician. She was the second woman in Russia to be a doctor and to obtain a degree in medicine (1876), after Nadezhda Suslova. Her exam was thereby unique in Russia at the time and received much attention. Despite the ban against women studying at University, she was given a special dispensation to study for her willingness to treat women patients who refused to be treated by male doctors because of religious reasons.