The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine has named the Department of Anesthesia's Franklin Dexter, MD, PhD, FASA, to its inaugural group of Impact Scholars — researchers who have made a major scientific impact during their careers.

 Franklin Dexter

Impact Scholars are selected based on the Hirsch index, also known as the h-index, which represents the number of research papers a faculty member has published, and the papers’ impact as gauged by how many times they have been cited by other scientists and scholars in subsequent research articles. For example, a researcher with an h-index of 50 has published at least 50 articles that each have been cited at least 50 times. An h-index increases as multiple papers are cited multiple times. The h-index calculations for the Carver College of Medicine Impact Scholars are based on research abstract and citation data from Scopus.

Dexter, director of the Department's Division of Management Consulting, is best known for his work on increasing efficiency in the operating room. Because most anesthesiology research does not focus on specific diseases, research in the field regularly has one of the lowest h-indexes among all specialties. Dexter's Scopus h-index is 55. His h-index on Google Scholar is 69, because Google Scholar includes government and other reports in health economics in its h-index calculations.