The subspecialty of infectious diseases is a new area of expertise in Japan. Implementing integrated curriculum in infectious diseases has been a major challenge and it still requires critical mass in this expertise.

This is a case study to report a cyber forum and its activities and developments over the past 10 years. A mailing list including 12-13 experts or trainees in clinical infectious diseases was initiated in 2002. The major purpose of this cyber network was to discuss clinical cases in infectious diseases to support doctors or trainees without specialists in their institutions.

Since 2005, stemming from this cyber forum, a nationwide academic association (Infectious Diseases Association for Teaching and Education in Nippon, IDATEN) has been developed with over 6,500 participants as of June 2013. The number of exchanged emails is approximately 1,000 per year with a total number of over 10,000 since 2002. IDATEN has initiated a face-to-face interactive conference four times a year, and short intensive seminars in clinical infectious diseases twice a year.