title: [Brain death: is it an appropriate term?].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Brain death is generally accepted as a concept to indicate death. It was introduced about 40 years ago, and it was considered the ideal situation for donation of organs.
  
  
  METHODS
  During this time, however, there have been problems in the understanding of this concept both in the medical profession and in the general population. University students from medical and non-medical schools were tested for their understanding of this concept.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results show that less than one third of the non-medical students identified brain death as death. The data from the medical students changed as they progressed through their studies, but only 2/3 of the graduating medical class believed that brain death is death.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Similar results have been seen in other universities around the world, and a renewed effort on the re-education of the concept of brain death may be worthwhile. Although we cannot extrapolate these results to the general population, the confusion is probably similar; hence an effort should be made to solve this problem.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Neurofisiología,Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, España. jiriarte@unav.es
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Iriarte
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Palma
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kufoy
authors.forename: M J de
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Miguel
mesh_terms: D001926:Brain Death; D004501:Education, Medical; D004506:Education, Nursing; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D012577:Schools, Medical; D013334:Students; D013337:Students, Medical; D009626:Terminology as Topic