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Updated: May 9, 2026
Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale
Published on: August 25, 2014
An assessment of academic productivity in pediatric neurosurgery
Ricky R Kalra1, John R W Kestle
1Department of Neurosurgery, School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
Object:
Various bibliometric indices are now commonly used to assess academic productivity in medicine. Some evidence suggests that these measures are specific to subspecialty areas. The authors' goal was to measure the h index of academic pediatric neurosurgeons and compare it with previously reported results for academic neurosurgeons in general.
Methods:
Programs with an Accreditation Council for Pediatric Neurosurgery Fellowships-approved fellowship were identified, and the h and g indices of each of their surgeons were calculated. These were correlated with academic rank and compared with published literature on academic neurosurgical departments.
Results:
Seventy-two pediatric neurosurgeons had a mean h index of 16.6 and a mean g index of 29.5. Both indices increased with progressive academic rank. The rank-specific mean index for academic pediatric neurosurgeons was similar to that of neurosurgeons from academic departments in general.
Conclusions:
Overall, the authors conclude that the h index metric is a reasonable measure of academic productivity in the pediatric neurosurgery arena that provides a robust measure of an individual's contribution to the pediatric neurosurgery literature. Like its counterpart in neurosurgery in general, the h index for pediatric neurosurgeons correlates with institutional rank. The h index calculation also reveals the productivity of the pediatric neurosurgeons to be on par with the productivity of neurosurgeons in general.
