A Special Kind of Doctor is a history of the College of Community Health Sciences at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It employs first-hand accounts from college founders and early leaders to chronicle the institution's birth during the early 1970s, its developing relationships with The University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham and DCH Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, and the growth of its facilities and programs, including the Capstone Medical Center and the family practice residency program. Family medicine had been the common practice before World War II, but the trend toward specialization in the years afterward created a shortage of general practitioners within the state, especially in small urban and rural communities. The founding of the CCHS in 1972 helped to remedy this situation, and the college continues today as a vital service to the state of Alabama.