Assessor or mentor? Role confusion in professional education Lucy Bray a, * , Peggy Nettleton b a Edge Hill College of Higher Education and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, UK b Academic Lead Clinical Partnership, Practice Learning and Development, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, UK Accepted 22 November 2006 KEYWORDS Mentoring; Assessment; Professional education Summary This paper reports on research conducted as part of a multi-professional study involving nursing, medicine and midwifery, which aimed to investigate both mentee and mentor perceptions of the mentorship role and the context within which it is conducted. It is well recognised that mentorship plays a vital part in the support and training of healthcare professionals. Documentation published by regulatory bodies regard- ing the mentorship role and changes in it’s implementation in practice has resulted in confusion among practitioners. This study consisted of questionnaires and semi-structured telephone interviews with both mentors and mentees, within three healthcare professions and focuses on the responses from the nursing profession. The mentors participating in the study struggled with their dual role as assessor and mentor and found conflict within this responsibility. The role of assessor was poorly recognised and the complexity of being both an assessor and a supporter/friend is discussed.  c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Although the concept of mentoring is not new, it is dif- ficult to define. The traditional concept of mentoring involves a voluntary alliance between an experienced professional and a less well advanced one (Byrne and Keefe, 2002). In recent years, mentoring systems have attracted considerable debate in both occupational and professional groups. Despite the comprehensive literature concerned with defining and determining the nature of the mentoring role (Anworth, 1992; Neary, 2000; Bayley et al., 2004), including various frameworks, there has been little or no universal agreement with regards the role and function. Further complicating the mentoring process in nursing and 0260-6917/$ - see front matter  c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2006.11.006 * Corresponding author. Address: Faculty of Health, Edge Hill University, St Helens Road, Ormskrik, West Lancashire, L39 0HL, UK. E-mail address: Brayl@edgehill.ac.uk (L. Bray). Nurse Education Today (2007) 27, 848–855 intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/nedt Nurse Education Today