The Nurse Practice Act is a set of state laws that govern specific aspects of the nursing profession. The Act aims to protect the public from an unsafe nurse by ensuring minimum levels of performance. It defines the formal education needed for a particular level of nurse and sets the regulations for licensure. New nurses in particular can often be intimidated into performing skills that they have not performed before because the unit is short staffed. This is really unacceptable and nurses need to remember the first rule of healthcare: do no harm. Don’t perform something you have never done before without appropriate supervision.