After Dr. Felicity Fishman finishes a surgery, there's one final touch that makes her process unique.

"We've done some great baby yodas ... a lot of dinosaurs," said Doctor Fishman, a hand and upper extremity surgeon at Shriners Children's Chicago.

All of the art is drawn with special, safe markers.

"Really it only takes 10 to 15 minutes and we're very conscientious about that," Dr. Fishman said.

"The cost of the pens and a little time is really inconsequential when you get to see the kids almost enjoy the experience," she said.

Dr. Fishman has been doing this for a couple years now with the help of nurses and the rest of her surgery team.

She originally got the idea after her fellowship, where her mentor used glitter to personalize casts after surgeries. One of her fellows recommended buying pens that might work on a cast. She's now been doing these special drawings for a couple years.

"Surgery is scary when you are the patient, and when you're a child and a lot of those decisions are being made for you, it's nice to have something in which they can be included, so they can take back a little bit of control on that day," Dr. Fishman said.

Popular TV characters, snowmen, trains, you name it. Dr. Fishman has expanded the artistic possibilities for kids.

"Learning all the different types of dinosaurs because these kids are very knowledgeable, not just any dinosaur will do. It has to be the specific type they want," she said.

"It's definitely gotten more intricate as we've gone on, as kids' requests have become even more specialized," Dr. Fishman said.

The Kentucky Humane Society is asking for donations to pay for an expensive surgery for a 5-month-old puppy with broken front paws.

The nonprofit group based in Louisville took in the puppy named MacGregor last week from an overcrowded Kentucky shelter. According to KHS, the puppy suffered blunt force trauma to his front paws, which resulted in broken metacarpal bones in both his right and left paws.

"These are very unusual injuries and we do not know what may have caused them, but we are determined to help MacGregor recover from his trauma," KHS said on Facebook.

In an update Monday, the nonprofit group said the puppy went to a specialist Friday, which allowed the team to determine the next steps for MacGregor. The puppy will need specialized surgery to help mend his broken bones, surgery that KHS said "requires a lot of resources."

(Click here to donate)

According to the nonprofit group, the surgery MacGregor will need "is more than KHS' monthly budget for offsite veterinary care."

"But we believe MacGregor is worth saving. This boy handsome boy has quickly stolen all of our hearts at KHS!" the team said on Facebook.

The staff at KHS said despite the pain the puppy is suffering, they said it hasn't brought down his spirits. MacGregor has the best personality and enjoys giving kisses to those he comes into contact with, the team said.

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KSH shared several photos of MacGregor. Those wishing to donate can do so online through Facebook or on the KHS website.

A recent medical breakthrough could help people get organ transplants faster.

“This is really the first attempt to move this into the clinical realm,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, said.

Dr. Montgomery and the rest of the team at NYU Langone Health recently completed the first investigational transplant of a genetically engineered pig kidney, to a human body.

“We had a genetically-edited pig kidney and a recently deceased human whose family essentially donated her body to participate in this test to see if this pig kidney would work,” he explained.

It’s a process known as xenotransplantation.

“There have been attempts at trying to advance xenotransplantation using animal organs for human use for about 50 years,” Dr. Montgomery explained. He said the process for making this surgery possible started about four years ago. They completed the surgery at the end of September. Doctors kept the donor on a ventilator. For 54 hours after the surgery, they monitored the donor to watch the kidney’s function and check for signs of rejection.

“We’ve been sort of stuck in the preclinical animal studies for a very long period of time and this really gives us the confidence because the kidney worked so well and it wasn't rejected. It gives us the confidence that we can now move to a living human trial. I think that is going to happen in the next year or two,” Dr. Montgomery said. “What this will do is really allow, I think, anyone who needs a transplant to be able to get it. And not have to wait for years and maybe get too sick or die before they get it.”

There are 106,713 patients currently on the national waitlist, according to statistics from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data pulled by the United Network for Organ Sharing on October 20, 2021. About 90,259 are in need of a kidney transplant.

“The 90,000 people on the list, that's really just a fraction of people who need a kidney,” said Dr. Michelle Josephson, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. Josephson is also a part of the American Society of Nephrology.

“If you look over time it has increased, and you say well why has it increased? I think the numbers increased one because we’re just not keeping up with demand...the other is that as we’ve gotten more knowledgeable about how to manage transplant recipients, we’re more willing to offer transplantation as a viable option to more people with perhaps more diseases and co-morbidities than we once felt capable or comfortable doing,” Dr. Josephson said.

Dr. Joseph Vassalotti with the National Kidney Foundation said that waitlist could take years.

“In parts of the country it might only be one year to wait for a deceased donor kidney. And in other parts of the country it might be 10 years, so there are some differences based on your blood type and where you live,” he said.

The possibility of xenotransplantation to help reduce wait times doesn’t come without controversy.

“There are barriers, people worried about the possibility of taking an infection from the animal world and bringing it into humans, so that's one big concern. There's been also concern that there's specific antibodies that humans might have against pig kidneys,” Dr. Josephson said.

Dr. Montgomery said he worked with a team of more than 100 people to manage those concerns.

“Everything that we did was really vetted through ethicists, through legal experts, religious experts,” he explained.

And it will be a while before this type of transplant is available to the public.

“It’s probably going to be several years before we can have large-scale clinical trials— to see this forward,” Dr. Vassalotti said.

A small device could one day be an alternative to gastric bypass surgery for people who are dangerously overweight.

Researchers at Texas A&M University created the device that is implanted into the patient's stomach. It makes you feel full by using light to stimulate the nerve endings that control hunger.

The device is controlled by a remote source, much like a pacemaker.

The lead researcher behind the device says it could be a safer option than a more invasive surgery.

“Gastric bypass surgery is the most popular approach to treat obesity. The thing is, it’s not a cost-effective solution, plus it involves side effects,” said Sung Il Park at Texas A&M University.

He says his team also gained a better understanding of how our body feels hungry.

Conventional wisdom is when the stomach expands, signals are sent to the brain that a person is full.

Park's team found it is possible to stimulate those nerves to make the body feel full, even when the stomach is empty.

“To be able to activate and manipulate individual neurons, we have to express light sensitive protein to the targeted region. So, such related research is ongoing,” said Park.

He says so far, they haven't found any technical problems with the device.

He says it could be a few years before it might be available for widespread use because they still have more research to do. And then it must go through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.

Scientists believe they've developed a way to treat skin cancer more efficiently and without surgery.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine developed an injection of nanoparticles and a chemotherapy agent that goes directly into the cancerous cells.

Dr. Michael Girardi says the breakthrough would allow doctors to treat multiple skin cancers at once.

An injection treatment could benefit health care systems and lower costs for patients.

Girardi says one of the most important parts in this possible treatment is how it targets the skin cancer.

“We load the anti-cancer agent within and that will slowly release over time. It keeps a lot of the anti-cancer drug right there within the skin cancer, so it can work long after the injection,” said Girardi.

Work on the treatment started more than three years ago. Researchers wanted to develop a method that concentrated on its intended target, but is also compatible with treatments that stimulate the immune system.

So far, they say the nanoparticles combined with the chemotherapy agent have been successful in clinical models.

“We have a special coating on these particles that allows it to be very sticky. So, when we put it into the tumor, it binds to proteins that lets it stay within the tumor matrix, which is a complex of proteins around the cancer,” said Girardi.

Girardi says the hope is each skin cancer would need just one injection, but it could take more than one depending on the severity and the patient. That is something that will be determined in human trials.

human trials are still a few years away, because they need to secure funding and partnerships.

Lily Beltran and her stepmother Katelyn Beltran like to admire all of Lily’s modeling photos on display throughout the house.

“She just popped this leg and looked all sassy,” Katelyn Beltran said.

Even when she’s not trying, Beltran says 16-year-old Lily has a natural talent for modeling. It all started when a photographer felt inspired during a family photo shoot.

“The photographer, it was the first we’d met her, and she was really taken aback by Lily’s potential versatility in photoshoots – just for being able to pull off a lot of different looks – and so she asked her to come and do another photo shoot afterward, and that’s kind of what kicked it off," Beltran said. "And then we were like ‘whoa, ok Lily, you got something there.’”

The greatest challenge has been finding dresses that fit because Lily has scoliosis.

“They make dresses very specifically," Beltran said. "If there weren’t like a keyhole that gave a little forgiveness in the zip-up, it wouldn’t fit her correctly.”

Lily says she wasn’t too bugged by the cosmetic issues. It was the chronic pain that eventually led her to surgery.

“A lot of the time in the middle of the night, my back would hurt, and so I would wake up, and then it was hard to go back to sleep because it wouldn’t go away," Lily said. "Or chores like dishes stuff where I’d have to lean over would hurt.”

“She was sleeping in such a broken way just to feel comfortable, and I know she wasn’t feeling comfortable, so she wasn’t getting good rest," Beltran said. "Therefore, she was exhausted at school – it was affecting her ability to perform well at school or to keep up with her friends.”

Back in December of 2019, Lily went through surgery to straighten out her back. Dr. Brian Shaw is her orthopedic surgeon at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

“She had two curves: one way up in her neck and then one longer one down in her thoracic and lumbar spine,” Dr. Shaw said.

He says scoliosis is a sideways curve or bend in the spine.

“It’s found in about three percent of all people.”

Dr.Shaw says scoliosis treatment has improved vastly even since his early years of training.

“For a whole year, they’d make a whole bed out of plaster that they’d keep people in," Dr. Shaw said. "And they would lose weight and get stiff and get bedsores, and today it’s come in, have surgery, go home two days later.”

The biggest risk with surgery is the possibility of infection. However, Dr. Shaw says most of the time, patients are completely fine. That was the case with Lily. Now in her modeling, her back is straight.

“That’s a super volatile industry and not always the best for self-esteem, and everybody knows that," Beltran said. "And we got really lucky to be working with photographers who were just so kind and so sweet about it. But I know that’s not always going to be the reality.”

Beltran says she believes Lily can now pursue modeling with less judgment. But she’s taught Lily to be comfortable in her skin – including the scar that runs down her back. In her future modeling endeavors, Lily says she hopes to continue finding photographers who celebrate what makes people unique.

“It’s more fun to go that route when they want to take pictures of my scar,” Lily said.

Pope Francis was discharged from a Rome hospital and returned home to the Vatican on Wednesday, 10 days after undergoing surgery to remove half his colon.

Francis, 84, sat in the passenger seat of the Ford car, which left Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic around 10:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m. EDT). He made a stop to pray at Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, which has a beloved icon of the Virgin Mary which Francis always visits after returning home from a foreign trip.

After the brief stop, Francis' small motorcade approached a side entrance to the Vatican. The Ford stopped before reaching the gate and Francis got out with the help of a bodyguard. He greeted some Italian security guards — two army soldiers standing guard and a handful of Italian police motorcycle escorts — and got back in the car, which then entered the Vatican through the Perugino gate.

Francis had half of his colon removed for a severe narrowing of his large intestine on July 4, his first major surgery since he became pope in 2013. It was a planned procedure, scheduled for early July when the pope’s audiences are suspended anyway and Francis would normally take some time off.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, confirmed Francis' return from the hospital and visit to the Rome basilica. Praying before the icon, Francis “expressed his gratitude for the success of his surgery and offered a prayer for all the sick, especially those he had met during his stay in hospital," Bruni said in the statement.

Francis will have several more weeks to recover before beginning to travel again in September. There are plans for him to visit Hungary and Slovakia in a Sept. 12-15 trip, and then make a quick stop in Glasgow, Scotland, in November to participate in the COP26 climate conference. Other possible trips are also under review.

The Vatican had originally said Francis could be discharged last weekend, but later said he would stay a few days extra for further recovery and rehabilitation therapy.

The pope appeared for the first time in public since the surgery on Sunday, looking in good form as he delivered his weekly prayer from the 10th floor hospital balcony, surrounded by young cancer patients. He used the occasion to call for free health care for all.

On Tuesday afternoon, the eve of his release, he visited the pediatric cancer ward, which is located on the same floor as the papal hospital suite.

The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed when he was a young man but has otherwise enjoyed relatively robust health.

Former Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen said his son, TJ, has now hit a major milestone in his heart health journey, NBC affiliate WCNC reports.

In a video shared on Twitter on Wednesday, Olsen showed a video of TJ ringing a bell at Levine Children's hospital in Charlotte.

It marks an important day TJ has looked forward to since his admission to the intensive care unit.

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TJ was born with congenital heart disease. He lived the first eight years of his life with a modified heart. In May 2021, Greg Olsen shared TJ's heart was nearing its end, and a heart transplant would be necessary.

A donor match was found in mere days, and TJ soon underwent surgery. The surgery was successful, and TJ thanked his father's followers for their prayers and support on his long road to recovery.

Greg Olsen continued to share gratitude for prayers and support from fans, family, friends and community members.

He had previously taken time to specifically request prayers for the donor family, who so far the Olsens do not know, according to WCNC.