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My publication portfolio includes about 100 articles written in English scientific dental journals. I can claim only a rather modest h‐index, ranging from somewhere between 20 and 30, depending on which source I favor. This particular author‐level metric indicates my h articles, each of which has been cited in other articles at least h times. It is of course inspiring that one's effort does not go unnoticed by other contemporary researchers. Yet, the research contributions that I would identify as either significant for society or work that will require elaborate efforts for others to replicate and analyzed with complex and refined statistical analyses appears not to be cited by others. Examples within these categories are (1) a study that enabled the trade unions in Norway to persuade the Norwegian national health insurance to cover restorative care caused by dental wear among workers in the mining industry (Jokstad et al. ). Per 2016, the number of citations remains at a meager n = 7. The second example is a longitudinal study where 201 patients in a PBRN network received posterior restorations and were subsequently monitored twice a year over the following 10 years to correlate the restoration outcomes versus the qualities of the cavities prepared by the participating dentists. Some clinical researchers can realize the logistical and patient management challenges associated with running studies over such extensive follow‐up periods. Moreover, the data were analyzed using a multivariate statistical method named discriminant analyses (Jokstad & Mjor, ). Restoration performance is the bread and butter of dentists worldwide. Yet, the number of citations of the paper remains relatively modest. My honest opinion is that these two papers deserve far more attention than many of my papers that currently generate my h‐index.
Obviously, the h‐index along with other analogous author‐level‐metrics indices is here to stay. There are multiple reasons why we need to be skeptical to these artifactual numbers. Obviously, one may choose whether to bend in the wind like the reed or attempt to resist...