The education of those who care for the health of the population has always been a matter of concern. In medical education, the figure of the experienced professional helping to educate and qualify a new generation is a constant finding. Such a professional has been given different names, preceptor, supervisor, tutor and mentor being the most common among them. Even official documents fail to clearly specify which functions, interventions, and activities each denomination entails. We thus aimed to analyze the meaning of these different denominations as used by the national and international scientific communities. Starting with the analysis of the concept each term expresses, we intend to build up a better framework for the regulation and practice of the teaching-learning process in the graduation and post-graduation courses in the health professions.
Medical Education; Concept Building; Professional Role
