After my paper was accepted I knew I still hadn't cleared the "real" scientist bar... the paper needed to actually be cited. I hope that I someday have enough papers/citations to not know/worry/care when they get cited; but right now I only have one paper. So I am going to know how many times it has been cited.
And it has been cited once! This is the bar I wanted to clear. Shortly after my paper came out, another paper was published in a "better" journal (by some standards) that had some similar results. I was somewhat nervous that the other paper would be cited and that my paper would disappear into obscurity. Now that my paper has been cited in a review paper, I can be optimistic that it might be cited in future papers - when the appropriate results are being discussed.
Citations are - in a way - proof that one has contributed to the overall progress of science. Or, that is how I choose to think about them. It is not that every important paper has many citations or that every paper that has many citations is important. But if I want my work to matter - to be medically or otherwise relevant - the only way to know it is happening is through evidence that other researchers are reading and using it. That is what citations are (in my naive mind).
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