Caring for non-combatants, refugees, and detainees.

The recently reported abuses at Abu Ghraib prison have brought the issue of medical care for displaced persons (DPs) to greater prominence. Natural disasters in the United States (eg, Hurricane Katrina) and elsewhere also require significant medical resources in situations that lack basic infrastructure. Intimate knowledge of the basic tenets of international law is crucial to the care of DPsin any capacity. This article provides an introduction to the Geneva Conventions and the medical and administrative issues that form a framework on which to base DP care.