A major challenge in medicine is making the leap from the medical training years to patient encounters in the clinical setting. The ability of recently graduated medical doctors to order diagnostic tests and interpret their results has been scrutinized, suggesting that medical schools do not properly prepare students for this critical task. Despite the efforts implemented by medical schools in including laboratory medicine in their curriculum, there is a dearth of information on the teaching methods that yield the best students’ learning outcomes. Therefore and as a proof of principle, we asked whether practical experience performing a laboratory technique such as the Gram stain increases competence in the comprehension and interpretation of the procedure by first year medical students.