I had my surgery with Felice O'Ryan at Kaiser Oakland. I've consulted with a bunch of surgeons in CA, including Arnett and Gunson. First and foremost, avoid Kaiser Oakland at all costs. My first surgery was severely botched, and instead of stepping up and fixing an obvious surgical error, Dr. O'Ryan and Kaiser left me hanging out to dry. It's a long story, and if you're interested, you can read my blog here:
http://confessionsofametalmouth.weebly.com/Otherwise, there are plenty of good surgical options in CA, including the immediate Bay Area. If you have the money and are willing to travel, Arnette and Gunson really are the best of the best here. Closer to the Bay Area, you have some bigger names like Kasey Li at Stanford. There are lots of lesser known mom and pop surgeons around that do great work as well. After all of my consults to have my surgery redone and fix all of Kaisers mistakes, I ended up choosing Dr. Nestor Karas in Walnut Creek. I haven't had my revision yet, but all of the work with my new team is so far so good-- completely night and day compared to the care I got with Kaiser (or lack there of from beginning to end).