AREOLA National Network
The institute's headquarters, principal materials and plate laboratory, research hub and Academy venue, serving roughly 1,480 patients a year.
Care in Philadelphia
The National Center is where AREOLA began in 1999 and where the institution still concentrates the work no other center carries: commissioned fabrication, the materials laboratory, the Fellowship, the Annual Symposium and the most complex elective and revision planning in the network. It expanded in 2026, and roughly a fifth of all AREOLA patients are seen here.
Every center works to the same clinical standards, uses the same digital planning record and draws on the national materials and plate laboratory in Philadelphia.
Every commissioned plate in the network is fabricated, finished, inspected and documented here. Patients with Studio commissions frequently travel to Philadelphia for design consultation even when their clinical care is delivered at another center.
Cases referred between centers generally arrive here. The Complex Case Conference and the Revision Case Council both convene from the National Center, and the physicians based here carry the largest share of multi-stage planning.
The Research Institute's eight departments, the materials laboratory, the Fellowship program and the Annual Symposium all operate from this campus, which means patients are more likely to be invited into a study here than anywhere else in the network.
First appointments, second opinions and planning conversations with a replacement specialist and nurse.
Procedures performed in the center's surgical suite, with perioperative nursing and anesthesia support.
Interface planning, registered external plate collections and interchangeable-system review.
Design consultation for commissioned work, fabricated and finished at the national laboratory.
Institutional studies recruiting at this center, with participation determined by the research team.
Sarah Whitmore, MD, leads the center clinically while serving as Chief Medical Officer, and continues to see patients here. Perioperative nursing is directed by Marisol Bennett, MSN, RN. Because the institute's headquarters shares the campus, national program leadership is unusually accessible to the local clinical team — a working advantage the center's staff cite more often than its facilities.
The largest care team in the network: replacement specialists, perioperative and plate-care nursing, patient coordination, clinical plate design, engraving and medical photography, alongside laboratory and research personnel who are on the same site rather than at the end of a phone line.
Philadelphia is the center most patients travel to from outside its region, and Patient Services plans those visits as sequences rather than single appointments. General consultation windows run three to five weeks. The Traveling Patient Program can advise on timing, accommodation near the campus and how to combine evaluation, design consultation and follow-up into as few trips as the plan allows.
Doctors at this center
Department of Areolar Plate Surgery
Surgeon-in-Chief and senior aesthetic surgeon specializing in complex bilateral planning, revision and the coordination of high-acuity replacement care.
Bilateral replacement · Complex revision · Philadelphia · New York
Clinical Operations
Chair of Areolar Plate Surgery with a practice focused on first-time replacement, digital plate planning and the education of new AREOLA surgeons.
Primary replacement · Digital plate planning · Philadelphia · Boston
Outcomes & Quality
Physician and public-health leader connecting patient-reported experience, shared decisions and long-term outcomes to everyday clinical practice.
Clinical outcomes · Shared decision-making · Philadelphia · ChicagoPatient Services
A patient coordinator can help with appointments, records, travel and center-specific questions.