Robotic Assisted Microsurgery (RAMS): Application in Plastic Surgery

The essence of plastic surgery is to have innovative thinking, capacity to find new methods and to adopt newer technologies to its benefit. The development of medical robotic system to assist surgeons in various surgical specialties is a new advancement and is a growing field of telerobotic research. The Robotic Assisted Microsurgery (RAMS) represents one of the latest innovations of telerobotics in the microsurgical field and with the continuing success of Robotic Assisted Microsurgery in various surgical specialties, the plastic surgeons have started exploring its application for performing technically challenging, time consuming and physical exhausting micro-vascular procedures. RAMS represents an advanced application of telerobotic surgery and a possible answer to the surgeon's demand for ways to overcome the surgical limitations of microsurgery. Basically the RAMS system is a telerobot with mechanical arms which is controlled by a computer but operated by a surgeon. RAMS allows performing high dexterity microsurgical operations with the help of robotic arms and improves microsurgery through tremor filtration, articulation, motion scaling, and improved ergonomics. The surgeon actually does a better, more precise, dexterous and highly controlled microsurgical procedure under high magnification resulting into optimal microsurgical outcome. This chapter reviews various developments in the field of robotic microsurgery and discusses various aspects related to human versus robotic microsurgery and its potential use in plastic surgery.