u/EconomistThese5096

Basically, pregnant woman, G2P1, coming in for routine 18-week visit. Her 5M son has Parvo B19. Management?

A. Routine AFP because it's the routine second trimester visit

B. Serum specific IgM and IgG because concern for parvoB19 infection

The answer is B, with an explanation that Parvo B19 is concerning in second OR third trimester for its ability to cause fetal anemia -> hydrops fetalis.

But, from Anking:

"What is the management of a pregnant patient with a positive antibody testing of parvovirus B19 < 20 weeks of gestation?

{{c1::Reassurance}}

--

There is a small risk for fetal loss
No proven risk of anomaly"

So, what am I to believe here?

Doing this after the "scleroderma woman with malnutrition and 3 of 9 sigecaps -> sertraline instead of an appetite stimulant" and thoroughly questioning my knowledge from anking/uworld...

My school refers to top quartile as “1st Quartile”. I just went to an AAMC event where another student asked a question about being 3rd or 4th Quartile as if it were a bad thing, with consolation from a PD that being in those quartiles was redeemable (i.e., suggesting that 3rd and 4th quartile are the bottom half of a class).

In every single mathematical or statistical context that I can remember, the term "1st quartile" refers to those between the 0th and 25th percentile, while 4th quartile refers to the quarter of a sample in the 75th to 100th percentile.

Does anyone else find this weird? Am I misremembering? Who decided that class rank quartiles in medicla school specifically would arbitrarily be thought of in opposite fashion to literally all other fields?

Edit: Think back to college biostatistics!! Or Google "which quartile is the top quartile" and you will ONLY see "fourth quartile" listed as top. It's just defined that way in statistics.

One can suggest it's arbitrary, and that's why medical schools/etc. can call the top quartile of students "1st quartile".

But that's just not.... mathematically accurate?? Just like quadrants—the (+,+) quadrant is quadrant 1, (-,+) is quadrant 2, (-,-) is quadrant 3, and (+, -) is quadrant 4.

Example: the formula to calculate interquartile range is Q3-Q2, not Q2-Q3.

This issue has been discussed before: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/sxfmev/which_quartile_is_highest/