Which article (an/the) is correct in this context?
This is an exercise we had to complete in our grammar class. I filled it up like this:
Write the missing articles, if one is needed.
A: Who is the man talking to C?
B: I'm not sure. I think he is a doctor.
A: He looks familiar. Do you know where he works?
B: I think he was the doctor who looked after C when she was in __ (zero article) hospital.
A: No—he is the assistant nurse.
My teacher said that all of it is correct, with only one exception. He says that it should have been an instead of the in the last blank. His reasoning is that ‘assistant nurse’ is being mentioned for the first time. And there are thousands of assistant nurses; we're talking about no one in particular.
But, I think that a particular ‘assistant nurse’ is in question—the one who looked after C when she was in hospital.
So which one of us is actually correct?
Answer
You and your teacher have both proposed valid articles there. Your teacher is wrong to insist that it be "an".
Your use of the would be understood to refer to the person who is normally or usually or typically a member of the medical team, the person in the role of "assistant nurse". The definite article implies that an assistant nurse is expected to be there, that an assistant nurse is de rigueur.
Your teacher's use of an would be understood to refer to just one of many assistant nurses, but to no one in particular, and it does not have the implication that one would customarily encounter an assistant nurse as part of the medical team.
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