Increasingly, nurses facing violence on the job

Wed, Nov. 10, 2010
By Jane M. Von Bergen
Inquirer Staff Writer
Amber Knierim, 20, wanted to be a nurse when she grew up, her MySpace profile says.

Instead, she's in jail for beating one up - a Temple University Hospital emergency-room nurse who was attacked when she tried to keep Knierim from grabbing needles from an empty examination room on June 21.

"She picked the wrong person to mess with," said Joan Meissler, 53, of Northeast Philadelphia, now working on light duty until she heals from the beating that wrecked her finances and left her in permanent pain, angry, and disheartened.

On Wednesday, 180 nurses and other health-care workers will convene in a ballroom at the Philadelphia Airport Hilton for a booked-to-capacity session on workplace violence for health-care workers, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, a union. the rest