Rate My Professor Keith Carter

Keith D. Carter, MD, FACS, serves as Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, holding the Lillian C. O'Brien and Dr. C.S. O'Brien Chair in Ophthalmology. He joined the University of Iowa faculty in 1988 and served as Chairman and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences from 2006 to 2025. During his tenure as chair, he advanced online education and AI applications in ophthalmology, increased philanthropic support by adding 10 endowed chairs and 13 endowed professorships, improved faculty diversity and staff advancement opportunities, and created the OR Eye Team and Surgical Simulation Center. Carter directs the Oculofacial Plastics, Orbit, and Reconstructive Surgery Fellowship program and has supervised 25 fellows.

Carter earned a BS in Pharmacy from Purdue University and an MD from Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed an internship at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, an ophthalmology residency at the University of Michigan W.K. Kellogg Eye Center, and a fellowship in Oculoplastic, Orbit, and Reconstructive Surgery at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He is board-certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and specializes in oculoplastic surgery, with research interests in cutaneous neoplasms, anophthalmic socket reconstruction, and thyroid eye disease. His scholarly output includes over 96 publications cited more than 3,113 times, among them 'Survivors of Self-inflicted Gunshot Wounds to the Head: Ocular and Visual Outcomes' (JAMA Ophthalmology, 2014), 'Frequency and Patterns of Hearing Dysfunction in Patients With Thyroid Eye Disease' (Ophthalmology, 2024), and 'Retrospective Optimization of the Hawkeye Orbital Fracture Classification System' (Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 2023). Carter has held presidencies of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (2018) and Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (2017), and received the AAO Life Achievement Award (2016), Orkan G. Stasior Leadership Award from the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and AAO EnergEYES Award (2022). He has been listed multiple times among Best Doctors in America.