1992 Benicia High School graduate Dr. Benjamin Busfield is an orthopedic surgeon with BASS Medical Group with several offices throughout Contra Costa County. (Photo courtesy of Anisha Kalra)

Ten years ago, BASS (Bay Area Surgical Specialists) Medical Group was formed to provide state-of-the-art medical care through a variety of offices and doctors located throughout Northern California. One of its more than 150 surgeons is Dr. Benjamin Busfield, an orthopedic surgeon with offices in Antioch, Brentwood and Walnut Creek, but it was Benicia that he originally called home.

Busfield grew up in Benicia, having attended its schools and even delivered the Benicia Herald on his Rose Drive route from the age of 10 to the age of 18. Busfield graduated from Benicia High School in 1992 and credited then-physiology teacher Brian Kelly with giving him a love for sports medicine.

“He just got me to love physiology, which has direct applications to medicine,” Busfield said.

Busfield went on to get a bachelor’s degree in physiology at the University of California, Davis; a masters in physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University where he also got his medical degree. He also did a year of sports medicine fellowship training at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, where he provided orthopedic assistance to several of the area’s professional sports teams, including the L.A. Dodgers, Lakers, Kings and Sparks and the Anaheim Ducks.

“What you learn from that experience of treating professional athletes is you don’t fix everything and you don’t rush to operate,” Busfield said. “You do just the opposite because they’re finely tuned machines, and you do as little as possible to get them back to play. To fix everything would create stiffness and issues and compromised performance.”

“A lot of athletes, as they’re getting toward the end of their careers will undergo surgery and not be able to come back,” he added.

With family still living in Benicia, Busfield decided to return to the Bay Area in 2009, this time settling in the East Bay where he is raising his two children, ages 7 and 9. Busfield joined BASS two years ago and specializes in arthroscopy and athletic injuries. His clients primarily come from Antioch, Brentwood and Lamorinda, but he is able to see patients from all over the Bay Area, including his hometown.

“Instead of having one office where I expect everyone to come and see me, I try to make it easier for people to see me by having multiple offices,” he said.

One area that Busfield has treated recently is youth athletes who come in with abrasions.

“There’s been an uptick in youth athletic injuries from overuse largely,” he said. “Many of those injuries are non-operative, but a lot of the kids will play through pain, play on multiple teams or play year-round for one sport, and that is not advisable. Typically, they come and see us late for treatment.”

Busfield is happy to be part of a model where the doctor is present throughout the patient’s care.

“Medicine’s gone kind of haywire relatively recently, where it’s hard to get good care quickly and accurately,” he said. “People spend a lot of time lost in the system, especially at Kaiser where they have the primary care doctors in control of everything. I try to be very available, I try to be as down to earth as much as I can and answer the patient’s questions in layman’s terms and get them back to function.”

To learn more about Busfield, visit bassmedicalgroup.com/our-doctors/dr-benjamin-busfield-orthopedic-surgeon-antioch.

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