In this video, Mikhail Varshavski, DO -- who goes by "Dr. Mike" on social media -- learns about rare, and often life-saving, operations.
Following is a partial transcript of the video (note that errors are possible):
Varshavski: Surgical techniques have literally become a medical marvel. We're about to take a look at some of the most miraculous transformations through surgery in these few videos. Let's get started.
Reporter 1: Ryan Wade is 5'7" tall. He has come to orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kevin Debiparshad, for a groundbreaking limb-lengthening procedure.
Debiparshad: After we have given you that additional height, you'd probably be sitting at very close to 5'11".
Reporter 1: The procedure involves implanting a steel device into the upper bone on both legs.
Varshavski: In the majority of cases, this procedure is done on individuals with leg-length discrepancies, meaning that one leg is significantly longer than the other, and as a result, you can't have a normal quality of life, or at least you have a more difficult quality of life.
Now, to do this as a cosmetic procedure is really risky, given the fact that first, essentially what you got to do is break the bone. Then you got to insert these rods that will periodically be extended, creating a little section separating the bone, which will then allow the bone to heal. Then you'll do it again and again and again. I think if you want to grow like 50 mm, which is about 2 inches, that can happen in a period of 2 months, let's say.
Reporter 1: The remote control signals the device to pull the bones apart, one mm at a time. The body makes new bone to fill in the gap.
Varshavski: Yeah. There is also ones that have an outside adjustment where people, you'll see them on their legs, wearing this tool.
Ryan Wade: I have got another 70 years left on this planet and I want to enjoy it to the full extent. This is something since I have been 14 that I have always wanted to do. Seventy-five thousand dollars towards getting tall; I'm picking getting taller.
Varshavski: There is I believe a condition called short-person dysphoria, when it comes to having dissatisfaction with one's height. There are some scientific studies that show those who are taller have higher satisfaction with life, have higher salaries, and higher positions. Correlations, not causations, here. This is a very extreme surgery that requires months of healing, rehab, risk, infection obviously is the primary issue, and obviously permanent damage if it does go wrong.
Reporter 1: Now, 3 months of grueling physical therapy begins.
Ryan Wade: That's stiff.
Reporter 1: Ryan's muscles need to be stretched as his bones grow.
Varshavski: People will have negative things to say about bariatric surgery, for example, but that has proven benefits to prolong life. We've seen diabetes resolve and go away after bariatric surgery. You're not just improving your quality of life, you're prolonging your life, and it's documented and it's proven. Here, it's a very subjective thing. I would encourage anyone who is considering this to first think about the mental-health component of this way before undergoing any kind of physical treatment.
Reporter 2: Born in Turkey in June 2018, rare conjoined twins, rarer still to be joined at the head, even more rare that they are boys.
Varshavski: The most commonly born conjoined twins are female. Like 70% are female. They can actually be attached anywhere: head, torso, trunk, etc.
Reporter 2: Their parents, Omar and Fatima Everonsoll, told that to do nothing would shorten their lives. To separate them would mean one would die.
Varshavski: That's a very difficult decision. Yeah, the survival rate is, like, in the single digits to teens for conjoined twins.
Reporter 2: Channel 4 News had exclusive access to the more than 40 hours of operations.
Varshavski: Wow.
Reporter 2: It has taken 7 weeks from the first operation to this moment. After the first 18 months of their lives being head to head, they can now face each other ...
Varshavski: Wow.
Reporter 2: ... and look into each other's eyes.
Varshavski: These separations are so difficult because a lot of times these children will share a vital organ and separation can mean life or death for a single one of them, if not both of them.
Oh, is this brain surgery? Yeah, so this is an awake craniotomy where the patient is woken up during a removal of a brain tumor to make sure none of the musical, movement, nerve portions of the brain are impacted.
Sujit Prabhu, MD: I think I asked him at that first interview, are you willing to play a guitar?
Robert Alvarez: You know, what is everyone going to think when I'm jamming? Okay, I play electric guitar. I love metal. I don't know very many acoustic songs.
Varshavski: I love that that's his concern, not that he is going for brain surgery, but that he usually plays a different type of guitar.
Shreyas Bhavsar, DO: The brain actually has no pain fibers.
Varshavski: Yeah, so the brain doesn't have the pain fibers, meaning the nociceptors, but the padding around the brain, the covering over the brain, the meninges, they have pain receptors. That's why you can get a headache. Wow, that's amazing.
Prabhu: I don't think there is a single part of the brain which controls music. When I think of music in general, I have used the word passion, but it comes from the heart.
Varshavski: Music is one of those things that relies on several portions of the brain because it has to work with timing, coordination, creativity, interpretation, hearing yourself, visual cues, space orientation of where your hand is, muscular control. All those are different portions of the brain, so of course it's not just one portion of the brain and certainly not the heart, no matter how romantic that saying does sound.
Reporter 3: During a routine ultrasound, doctors discovered a tumor on Margaret Boemer's unborn baby and operating on her while she was in the womb was the only option to save her.
Varshavski: I wonder how they knew what type of tumor it was.
Margaret Boemer: We knew that if we didn't choose the option of emergency surgery that night that, within a day or so, she would pass.
Varshavski: I would love to know how they knew that that was to be true. It must have been putting pressure, exhibiting what we know as mass effect on circulation or breathing, because a lot of times it's very difficult to predict how certain tumors would behave, especially in utero.
Reporter 3: At 16 weeks, the scan revealed a rare tumor on Lynlee's tailbone. By 23 weeks, it had grown to the same size as the baby and her heart began to fail.
Varshavski: Basically what happens is sometimes the tumor grows so rapidly that it requires so much blood flow, so much circulation through a vascular neogenesis, where essentially the tumor starts releasing these factors that encourage blood vessel growth. It essentially starts feeding itself, but taking away from the life form that initially birthed it, for lack of a better word, or created it.
That's why a lot of times when I have a patient who comes in with weight loss that was unintended and significant, meaning more than just a couple pounds here or there, we investigate it to make sure that it's not a tumor or cancer.
Reporter 3: She was outside of the womb for just 20 minutes as surgeons removed 90% of the tumor.
Varshavski: Wow.
Reporter 3: Thirteen weeks later, she was born again in June and the rest of the tumor was removed.
Sam: What would you consider to be her real birthday?
Varshavski: The official birthday, because she went back in the womb, it doesn't count.
Mike Varshavski, DO, is a board-certified family physician and social media influencer with more than 10 million subscribers.