Akram Khan received his medical degree from Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India in 1994. Following residency training in internal medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Missouri in 2000, he did a critical care fellowship at Saint John's Mercy Medical Center (St. Louis University) in Saint Louis Missouri in 2001. He then worked as a director of emergency room and emergency room physician at Saint Alexius Hospital in Saint Louis. He joined a pulmonary fellowship at the University Of Oklahoma College Of Medicine in Oklahoma City in 2004. This was followed by a fellowship in sleep medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in 2006.

Before joining Oregon Health & Science University he was working as an assistant professor at University of Florida College of Medicine at Jacksonville as a faculty in pulmonary critical care medicine and was the co-director of the Sleep Disorders Center. He is board certified in internal medicine, critical care, pulmonary medicine and sleep medicine. His clinical interests in sleep medicine include sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome and narcolepsy. His interests in pulmonary critical care medicine include pulmonary artery hypertension, lung cancer and critical care medicine. He maintains an active interest in clinical and translational research.