Byalip, I'm glad all has gone well for you.
My parents wound up not suing- my dad wanted to, but my mother asked him not to- her health declined so rapidly she didn't feel up to the stress of a malpractice suit, I guess. I can only hope the first two idiots who saw my mother took other ostensibly low-risk women who came in with lumps more seriously the next time, but I'll never know.
I agree, most doctors are very competent- my point was, the majority of errors are done by a small number of doctors- so why isn't it easier to get them out of the profession?
Though, I've also read that medical malpractice suits in the end, do not add that much cost to doing medicine; they're just used as an excuse by the insurance companies to justify the money they demand from doctors and patients.
In any event, here's an interesting explainer-type article about the specifics of Elizabeth Edwards' diagnosis:
http://www.slate.com/id/2162548?nav=tap3