Introduction: Our current medical curriculum devotes a large percentage of time to knowledge acquisition by means of didactic lectures. Psychomotor skill acquisition takes a back seat. Certain lifesaving skills like basic life support skill training have not even made an appearance in the current curriculum. Equal time distribution to cognitive and psychomotor skills should be allotted for MBBS trainees, which is a very practical subject. Simulation can prove to be a valuable tool in imparting skill training. The present study aims to evaluate the efficacy of different teaching modalities in imparting lifesaving skills among first-year MBBS students. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 33 first-year students who consented to participate. Approval was obtained from the institutional ethics committee. The students were divided into three groups, each undergoing either didactic lecture or animation-based videos or simulation studies. Pretest, posttest, and skills tests were administered to them. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired t test were the statistical tests employed using SPSS version 21. Results: The pretest and posttest scores were comparable in the three groups while the improvement in the posttest scores in all the three groups was significant. The skills test was significantly better in the group undergoing simulation training compared to the other groups. Conclusion: Didactic, animation, and simulation are all good methods in imparting cognitive knowledge, but simulation is the method of choice in imparting psychomotor skills. Clinical significance: An overhauling of the medical curriculum to include more skills training to the budding doctors using simulation-based techniques is recommended.