FARMINGTON — Dr. Richard Batstone, who has been serving the local community at Franklin Health Urology for the last three and a half years, announces that he is opening a private practice at 126 Middle St.

The new office will be open on July 5, but patients may made appointments at any time beginning June 27 by calling 779-1977. Office hours will be 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. He is welcoming new as well as existing patients.

Dr. Batstone studied medicine at Cambridge University in England. He graduated with the highest first-class honors degree in 1990 and qualified with his medical degree in 1993. He completed a residency in urology in Cambridge and a medical doctorate in the immunology of prostate disease, also at Cambridge University, in 2003.

He has been an invited member for a National Institutes of Health expert panel on prostatitis. He completed four years of overseas experience in Brisbane, Australia, and Ireland before returning to the United States in 2007 to work in Farmington.

Dr. Batstone is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons and is board certified in both countries. His special interests include stone management, prostate diseases and voiding dysfunction/ urodynamics. He lives in Waterville with his wife and their children.

For returning patients, Dr. Batstone announces that his former practice team of Samantha Nadeau, MA, Shannon Cote, RN, and receptionist Sherry Carrier are joining the new practice with him. Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers accepted.