"It's extraordinary. It truly is transformative in terms of what every day medical practice can be like," one doctor said.
3-D printers are changing lives at Stanford.
The machines aren't just made for TV inventions, as seen on "Grey's Anatomy" where organs, prosthetics and tissues could be made in just a few hours.
At Stanford's bioengineering lab, science and medicine intersect to create detailed, life-sized models of hearts.
"You can see all the different tubes and veins we have," Paul Holding said.
Surgeons can practice technique, approach and options on these 3-D printed organs before operating on an actual patient.
"To get an engineer to make one of those things could cost thousands of dollars. Where as we can go to a 3-D printer, we might be able to get it over night and it may cost a few dollars," said Dr. Paul Wang, a Stanford professor.
Creating these hearts cost less than $100, but it's not just Stanford's Cardiology Department that's printing plastic organs - Stanford's Department of Urology is, too.
"Using 3-D printing, you can make a perfect mold of that patient's prostate, then you can put it in here and use it to section the prostate very accurately," Ross Venook, Ph.D. said.
It's a research project to help cure prostate cancer. While Stanford is using the 3-D machine to create a model of live human tissue, many say having something tangible like this to work with takes things to a whole new level.
"What is it worth to hold something the right size and shape in your hands, I think it's immeasurable," Venook said.
Each printer costs roughly $50,000.