Valentine’s Day Special: A Love Letter to the Heart
A Valentine’s note that skips the pink hearts and goes straight to the real one: the four-chambered muscle that keeps you in the game. VO2 max, rowing, breathing, and the quiet work of maintenance.
No Snow & Keep Your Lines Light
A snow day that wasn't, a 0.2 mm pencil, and what Crucial Conversations gets right about drawing: keep your lines light until you know where the structure is.
Have You Ever Wondered…the Medicine & Science of Losing Your Temper?
This Teaching Edition explores what happens in the brain and body when anger takes over the nervous system, how to bring it back online as a physician, parent, and human.
Have You Ever Wondered…Why “We Talked About It” Isn’t Communication?
ICU communication isn’t a vibe. It’s a system families can feel. Using ARMOR as a framework, this Tuesday Teaching Edition explains how huddles, daily goals, and structured rounds can create clarity, safety, and trust.
Polar Vortex, Persian Jazz, and Yellow Dream Worlds
The cold didn’t bring snow. It brought clarity. Warmth is not just heat. Warmth is behavior: a hug, Persian tea, niche music, and a yellow dream world on a wall.
Learning to Breathe While the Truth Burns
A story about heat, breath, and learning to stay present when the truth burns.
Bow ties & Pipes
Notes from BOKA. Medicine, meaning, living. Bow ties, pipes, bookcases, and the quiet joy of thinking out our in internal medicine. Stay curious.
Have You Ever Wondered Why Sepsis Patients Crash So Quickly?
Sepsis doesn’t usually announce itself loudly at first. It holds itself together until it can’t.
Three Dolls
I read my kids a Persian story about three dolls the other night. By week’s end, it had followed me into the ICU. Some moments ask for speed. Others ask for listening that stays. Notes from BOKA: Medicine, Meaning, Living.
The Quiet Weight We Carry
INK+OXYGEN by Dr. Boka. A reflection on the quiet weight of responsibility in medicine, leadership, and daily life.
Where We’re Going, We Need More Time
A Back to the Future theater night, a Hobonichi year review, and one simple plan to build 2026 with more attention, more reverence, and more oxygen.
INK+OXYGEN #2: Showing Up
A Christmas morning at the kitchen table—drawing with my kids, thinking about breathing rhythms in the ICU, and learning why showing up matters more than being productive.
