He worked as an attending physician at the Northern Home for Friendless Children. He gained extensive experience in ophthalmology and successfully treated 500 cases of ophthalmia at the home. He worked as an eye doctor for seventeen years at the Children's Homoeopathic Hospital. He founded the Bushrod James Ear and Eye Institute. He was a consulting physician at Hahnemann Hospital, an advisory board member for the Hahnemann Medical College, and a trustee of the Spring Garden Institute.
He served as a delegate for the American Institute of Homeopathy and later as its president. In 1857, he served as president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He was chair of physiology, climatology, and sanitary science for three years at the New York Medical College for Women.
During the American Civil War, he served as a member of the United States Christian Commission, as a volunteer surgeon during the Battle of Antietam and the Battle of Gettysburg, and as a surgeon at an Army hospital in Philadelphia.
He was a frequent contributor to medical literature and published several books of poetry and about his travels in the United States and Europe.
He never married and left his fortune to charity. In his will, he bequeathed money to be used for a library at his home in Logan Square. Decades after he died, the Free Library of Philadelphia used his endowment to build the Bushrod branch in Northeast Philadelphia in 1950. He also left $55,000 in cash and property for the maintenance of the Bushrod Washington James Eye and Ear Institute. He bequeathed property to the city of Oakland, California, for the creation of Bushrod Park; and to Coronado, California, for the creation of the Bushrod Washington James Institute for the education of children. He left property and $5,000 to the American Temperance University in Harriman, Tennessee, for the creation of a school of domestic science and an educational fund.
