By Daily Press staff
Janice D’Amico, MD, of Santa Monica was not your ordinary doctor, and likewise she departed this world in a larger than life way.
The 47-year-old physician, whose first career was as a rock and roll guitarist, was vacationing in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean when she died in a scuba diving accident on February 10.
After surfacing from her third dive of the day, D’Amico experienced trouble breathing and went into cardiac arrest. The exact cause of her death is not known, but officials suspect embolism — a common occurrence among divers, where tiny air bubbles in the bloodstream expand and burst as a diver approaches the water’s surface.
A memorial service will be held March 8 at 4 p.m., at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills.
D’Amico will be missed by friends, family members and colleagues.
“She was an incredibly learned and passionate person,” said K. Pearson Brown, her partner of four years. “She would envelop herself in a new interest and study it and practice it until she mastered it. She did more living in one year than many people do in a lifetime.”
In the 1970s, D’Amico traveled the country as a member of a pioneering all women’s rock and roll group, Sweet Jenny Grit. One early review in the Syracuse New Times reported, “For Janice D’Amico, the band’s lead guitarist, there can be nothing but praise as she lays down some real tasty licks and refuses to overplay.”
After many years as a successful musician, D’Amico pursued a second career in medicine.
After receiving her medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987, she practiced anesthesiology and attained sub-specialty experience in obstetrics, cardiac surgery, pediatrics and neurology.
D’Amico’s diving safaris took her to Papua New Guinea, Bali, Egypt’s Red Sea, Sippidan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Micronesia, La Paz, Palau and the Maldives.
“Janice always wanted to find the big fish,” said Patty Shayles, a diving companion. She would seek out schooling barracuda and sharks. The hammerheads were her love. She described diving as a spiritual experience that made her feel closer to God.”
In the 1990s, D’Amico cycled though Italy, and in 1995 she trekked through the Zanskar Valley in the Himalayas. She was an avid tennis and volleyball player and fitness enthusiast.
D’Amico loved to garden and cook. She was a participant in local social, arts and entertainment organizations and a member of a conversation salon of authors, scholars and artists.
In recent months, D’Amico had read many books about religions of the world and communing with nature on hikes and scuba diving. Friends said she was on a spiritual quest.
“Janice had a core attitude to live life to the fullest,” friend and fellow diver Katie Gregory said. “She was a truly beautiful person. She was intense, a very strong spirit — this world was not enough for Janice.”
On her last trip, she was learning French from scuba master Josi Dalcourt.
“Before her last dive, we had a great talk for a couple of hours, and she was super happy,” Dalcourt said. “She said to me in French, ‘I love life.’”
D’Amico was born in Syracuse, New York. She graduated from San Francisco State University where she received a bachelor of arts in Music Performance. She received a medical degree from the University of California at Los Angeles, School of Medicine. She was certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology and the National Board of Medical Examiners.
D’Amico is survived by her father, James F. D’Amico, and step-mother, Carmaline D’Amico; two sisters, Regis Ann Davis and Nancy D’Amico; loving friends K. Pearson Brown, Leslie King and Laura Thomas, D.D.S.; two step-sisters, Lisa Frateschi and Christine Pollock; stepbrother Richard Lemmon; and several nieces, nephews and cousins.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 5, 2003. Read the original PDF.