[erlang-questions] gen_server equivalent of "after"?

[Jim McCoy]

In a standard receive loop it is fairly obvious how to set up a
timeout within the loop.  When using gen_server this becomes opaque to
the point that I am wondering if it is even possible.  I have a
gen_server module set up to handle a task, but I want it to do some
action if no messages are received within a certain amount of time.
Do I really have to spawn another process just to trigger these events
or am I missing something?

jim