José M. Porcel, Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova, IRBLleida, Universidad de Lleida, Lleida, Spain
Leyre Liesa, Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova, IRBLleida, Universidad de Lleida, Lleida, Spain

Author-level metrics are usually employed for academic promotion and research funding. The h-index is a way of measuring scientists’ productivity and impact on their field, determined by the number of publications and the number of times those publications have been cited. However, the h-index calculation does not capture the influence of factors such as research topics, article types, highly cited items, self-citations, number and position of authors, and academic career length. Nonetheless, variants of h-index that address some of these limitations correlate widely with their original metric, are not available in bibliographic databases and, overall, add little for measuring research productivity.

Keywords: Authorship. Hirsch index. Bibliometrics. Internal medicine.