Robert D. Acland, MBBS, FRCS (June 20, 1941 – January 6, 2016) was a surgeon and academic credited with being one of the pioneers in plastic and reconstructive microsurgery.

[4] The video atlas depicts moving structures and pioneers new and highly effective techniques of anatomical videography for a clear three-dimensional understanding of spatial relationships.

The unique dynamic and 3-D perspective was achieved using innovative camera rotation techniques pioneered at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

[7] In 1969 Acland spent a year as a senior registrar[a] in general surgery in Swindon,[5] where his interest in microsurgery began after watching John Cobett perform a microvascular anastomosis.

During his training in Swindon he began developing microsurgical instruments on the side but realized that to make any real progress he would need to research the problem full-time.

[7] Acland applied for and received two years of funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to improve the instruments used in microsurgery.

It was unusual for surgical trainees to receive MRC funding, and Acland suspected that the Scottish plastic surgeon Thomas Gibson may have played a part in approving his application.

[7] With this funding he returned to London Hospital in 1970, where he improved the tiny needles and thread used in microsurgery, invented the "Acland micro vessel clamp," and investigated how to prevent microthrombosis.

Acland realized that he needed to commercialize the process[5] and initially approached Ethicon, then the largest suture manufacturer in Britain, with a proposal to do so.

While it was immediately useful, Tobin thought that it resembled a dungeon cell, located as it was in the basement of a University of Louisville medical building.

Although he had been considering such a project for years, the immediate cause was a conversation he had with a medical student, Suzanne l'Ecuyer, at the University of Louisville, after giving a lecture on the importance of anatomy in clinical practice.

[13] His goal in producing the video atlas was to dissect lightly embalmed cadavers in order to preserve natural tissue appearance and demonstrate structures moving as they would in the living body.