The Post-Call Blues

Because this piece has no abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

My practice handles our inpatient workload by rotating call and hospital duties aweek at a time. This Friday morning heralds the end of my latest tour of duty,and it starts with FE, a 70-year-old gentleman I admitted 2 nights ago. FE hasa long history of bipolar disorder, which has been significantly complicated:among the highlights are 45 admissions for electroconvulsive therapy by hispsychiatrist. He was doing fairly well until a month ago, when he presumablysuffered a stroke while visiting family in another city.