Free hands and Battle Medicine

[Alex319]

How many free hands, if any, does it take to use Battle Medicine?

The version on Archives of Nethys says, under the requirements for Battle Medicine, only that you must be holding or wearing healer's tools; it says nothing about a free hand. (This is in contrast to other Medicine uses like Treat Poison, which do say you need a free hand.)

Does this mean that Battle Medicine is supposed to be different, and can be used without a free hand? Or does it work the same as other Medicine skill uses?

[CrystalSeas]

Official ruling

Mark Seifter Design Manager wrote:

1) We want one-handed weapon characters who keep a free hand to be able to use their worn tools, and that includes Battle Medicine. Last night, Jared Thaler cleverly noticed the same thing that the design team had noticed just a bit earlier ourselves that this applies to more than just healer's tools so was a bit bigger than it seemed.

The end result was adding an update on the errata for Battle Medicine and for worn tools. Basically if you're wearing a set of tools, you don't need one hand to hold the kit and the other hand to hold the specific thing you're using (bandage, lockpick, or what have you), you just need one hand to draw the items you need, and the kit as a whole stays worn.