The importance of medical simulation as a modern teaching tool becomes obvious. Despite, its significant expansion these last years, particularly in specialties like anesthesia, emergency medicine and obstetrics, it's not widely used in specialties like cardiology. The purpose of our study was to assess the effectiveness of simulation-based medical education in the management of cardiovascular emergencies among Moroccan graduate students.

Materials Our study was a prospective, observational, multi-centre study including the students of Casablanca, Rabat, and Fes universities from the 5^th to the 7^th year of medicine who underwent 6 phases: First a pre-test, then a theoretical and practical training on cardiovascular emergencies after which the students were separated in two groups, one undergoing the medical simulation training (group 1) and one who didn’t (group 2), followed by a theoretical then a practical post-test. At last, the students were asked to answer a satisfaction survey. The statistical analysis was bivariate with a significant P value<0.05.

A totalf of 57 students were enrolled in the study and divided into 2 groups (Group 1, n=25 and Group 2, n=27). Both groups were comparables in terms of year of study, faculty and their previous internships as well as a former participation in medical simulation. The pre-test results were comparable between the two groups (6.05±2.68 for group 1 versus 5.88±2.52 for group 2). However, both theoretical post-test results (18.83±1.27 versus 17.13±2.01 for group 2, P<0.001) and practical evaluation results (16.15±1.72 versus 10.92±1.35, P<0.001), were in favor of group 1.

This preliminary study showed the significant benefit of simulation-based medical teaching and learning as an innovating teaching tool in the cardiovascular emergencies in the medical students’ basic training and suggests its generalization to the cardiology and intensive care interns’ continuous training.