Background and aims A clinical intern must balance patient care and the ongoing acquisition of medical knowledge. With increasing clinical responsibilities and patient overload, medical training is often left aside. In order to improve their medical education in 2012, we conceived and implemented a training course for interns in neonatology and paediatric emergency medicine. The course was composed of didactic sessions and several simulation based seminars for each year of residency. We conducted this study to assess the impact of our program on residents’ clinical skills and satisfaction.

Methods A survey was conducted at the end of each seminar. The students were asked to complete a form, on a 1 to 5 scale, which evaluated the course and its impact on residents’ satisfaction and clinical skills, including theoretical knowledge, bedsides practical skills, overall medical competence and team work.

Results 44 interns attended the course and 41 of them completed the evaluation form (93%). The mean for each session was consistently above 4. The mean satisfaction score for the entire course was 4.78+/-0,42. Over 80% of students felt that their clinical skills were improved with the course.

Conclusion Medical education is an important component of residency training. Our training course responded to the needs of our students with consistently satisfactory evaluations. We encouraged teachers to ask for students’ assessment in order to improve ongoing medical education. The main limit of this study was the lack of information on the impact of the course on patient care.