If Depeche Mode was being piped through the OR speakers while you were a resident you probably witnessed the adoption of a standardized method for mitral valve surgery, popularized by Dr Alain F. Carpentier.  Most would agree that the efforts to make mitral valve repair available to the cardiac surgeon population at large also made the treatment of mitral valve disease available to a patient population much larger than ever before.  Aortic annuloplasty has the possibility of doing to aortic valve repair today that which was done to mitral valve repair 20 to 30 years ago.