The University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Tuesday said its community pharmacy merged pharmaceutical services with education and research, which is different from other medical dispensaries in the city.

Located at the medical school's campus in Pok Fu Lam, the community pharmacy opened its doors in November, serving mainly Queen Mary Hospital patients as well as HKU staff and students.

The medical facility, which is the city's first teaching community pharmacy on a university campus, offers a number of prescription-only medications and drugs for minor ailments.

Jovan Chow, a third year pharmacy student at HKU, said he was able to learn by observing how pharmacists interact with patients.

"My biggest takeaway from [working at] the community pharmacy is actually the soft skills I acquired during my time here... I have more opportunities to have a glance of how community pharmacies operate," he said.

Ian Wong, professor of pharmacology and pharmacy at the university's medical faculty, said the facility goes beyond serving those seeking help.

"The main duties and core functions of a university are teaching, research, and knowledge transfer," he said.

"Our pharmacy's mission is also to [give] the best education to our students, and secondly, is to make use of this pharmacy to conduct research, so that we can help our patients and citizens to optimise the use of medicine. And finally, providing services is actually a knowledge transfer, so that we make use of our knowledge to treat our patients."