Gift Chowchuvech, LMSW, APHSW-C

After more than a decade in the fashion industry, volunteering at The Zen Hospice Project prompted me to go back to school to complete my MSW at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. While there, I worked on a volunteer project with Chaplain Dirschell, at a prison hospital in the Michigan Department of Corrections, to provide Dignity Therapy to end-of-life prisoners. That project helped pave the way for the development of the mens and womens prison hospices in Michigan to utilize Prisoner Palliative Care Aides to companion their peers facing end-of-life.

I have experience with inpatient behavioral health, an outpatient setting with the State of Michigan and with medical social work, specifically palliative care. While in New York City, I completed training to be an end-of-life doula, with The Doula Program to Accompany & Comfort, completed meditation training with David H. Wagner and attended additional coursework in Contemplative Palliative Care at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. I am certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy and have completed additional training in DBT, Motivational Interviewing, Internal Family Systems and Narrative Therapy. I currently work as a Palliative Care Social Worker in both inpatient and outpatient settings at University of Michigan Hospital.