Hi there!
First and foremost, do not let anyone tell you that RN to MD is not possible. I know this, because I am currently an RN and have been accepted to an MD program for 2014. You may encounter RNs who did not get into medical school- but there are plenty of other people, for one reason or another, who do not get accepted. It's not necessarily the RN.
That being said...RN or not, you must follow all the advice to be a stellar medical school applicant. There's lots of valuable advice around these parts regarding what makes a successful medical school candidate, including things like volunteer work, research, leadership, shadowing, and of course, solid GPA and MCAT.
Your experience as a nurse will be both an obstacle to overcome as well as a boost to your application. You will most definitely need to explain why the switch from nursing to medicine. I addressed this partly in my AMCAS personal statement, in all of my secondaries, and you can bet your favorite pair of socks I was asked about it during my interviews! This is a potential reason why nurses sometimes aren't successful in making the transition to MD- they don't communicate effectively to the interviewers solid reasoning for the switch.
However, I've heard from many people that admissions committees often like to pose questions to prospective applicants such as "how do you know you wouldn't be happy being, say, an RN or NP?" You have firsthand experience as to why this wouldn't be a good career choice for you, instead of speculation. You also have the unique experience of seeing all the parts of the healthcare team work together, and have a greater understanding of the differing roles of all of the team members (RNs, PAs, social workers, MDs, maybe even PhDs, etc) and can honestly demonstrate a true understanding of what it means to be a doctor vs a nurse vs a nursing assistant vs a PA...
As a nurse, you do often get very close to patients and deal with things MDs don't deal with as often (purely because they are very, very distinct professions!). You have already encountered sick, disabled, and possibly dying patients, and the emotional impact of that is not necessarily different for nurses or doctors, even if their professional roles are. This is a huge strength to your application.
Your GPA is very impressive! (higher than mine!). A big reason why RNs aren't always successful in transitioning to MD is that nursing school courses are not necessarily easier than traditional science classes BUT emphasize a different type of knowledge and a different perspective. Chemistry for nursing school vs chemistry for an undergraduate science degree will be different. Not because one group is smarter or better than the other, but what you are taught about chemistry in each class is shaped with the ultimate career in mind- training as a nurse vs training as a scientist. So it's important that you use traditional undergraduate courses to fulfill your premed requirements and take the MCAT after having taken such courses, which you've done.
You'll need to do pretty well on the MCAT- 30+ is widely the metric used for determining MD competitiveness. Some DO programs may consider you with a score less than 30- but not much less. DO and MD programs both produce DOCTORS, so while DO schools may be more forgiving of non-traditional backgrounds, they are not to be viewed as "easier" schools to get into than MD schools.
As far as shadowing goes- I actually did not have any formal shadowing listed in my application. However, in both nursing school clinicals and at my job, I have spent many hours with both doctors and nurses, and have seen what the life of a resident is like, attending, nurse manager, etc. I'm not going to discourage you from shadowing if you have time but if you do work closely with physicians in your job, that is shadowing "built in" to your work and is certainly sufficient to give you an understanding of what life is like for a medical professional.
PM if you want any tips on the "why leave nursing for medicine?" or anything else.
While nursing ended up not being the path for me, I don't regret becoming a nurse at all. I did not go to nursing school thinking I would eventually go to medical school- and I made sure to stress that to adcoms as well. Rather, nursing is an awesome profession but not a good fit for me. That being said, I think it gave me tremendous insight into the field of healthcare, strengthened my conviction to pursue medicine, and allowed me to really see some of the worse aspects of healthcare- and has made me all the better for it.
Good luck!!!
