After the scientific medical point of view in the early 1980s that actual death is brain death - a federal law was passed in the United States in 1981 determining death as "the irrevocable loss of the brain functions of a human being" - some newspapers and television stations reported that some physicians in Egypt and elsewhere were questioning the internationally dominant notion that the complete death of the brain is the decisive factor in determining the moment of death. Some media have recently reported stories of people who came back to life after it had been declared that their brains were dead. Does this, then, negate the theory of brain death, or does it indicate a misapplication of the theory? This was the question brought before the participating physicians in this special seminar.