Does the h-index and self-citation affect external funding of orthopedic surgery research? An analysis of fellowship directors and their subspecialties

Determine the impact of self-citation on external funding for orthopedic fellowship directors. The San Francisco Match's website identified directors encompassing 8 subspecialties. The Scopus database identified the number of publications, citations, and h-index for each director. H-index was assessed with/without self-citation. Mean publications, citations, self-citation rate, and h-index for the 446 directors were 71.2, 1816, 3.86%, and 18.3, respectively. Excluding self-citations reduces mean h-index to 18.0; and h-index changed by ≤ 1 integer in 95% of directors. Self-citation has minimal impact among fellowship directors and should not be adjusted for when considering external funding.