Don't get me wrong, I have a plan B too, but I'd never tell my interviewers that I may just up and switch professions later on down the road. May switch to a different part of the profession, but I doubt I'd get many points for telling them I'd drop the vet med field entirely. They'd go 'well why give it to this guy when we can get someone who's committed?' Especially since there's so few slots already.
Actually, a lot of vets DO change their careers down the line, but still use their DVM. Maybe they find that they are better in politics. Or they can use their DVM as an astronaut or researcher. Or maybe they get trampled and can't do the large animals anymore, so they switch to poultry. Or their mild cat allergy turns into a general cross species dander allergy and they work for a pharm company or as a science writer, etc. Part of acknowledging your other abilities and skills and interests is part of showing that you understand the flexibility of the field and will be able to continue using your degree even if clinical medicine isn't a viable career at some point.
So, having the flexibility and showing that you can and will adjust, even with your degree, is important. It is important that you are a flexible individual. Also, that is where the other goals question comes in; it keeps you balanced. It also means that if you go from being a 4.0 student to a 2.0, you have other things to fall back on that bolster your spirits about your ability and competence. Also, if you have hobbies that you have maintained through college, you can probably balance bad days with healthy habits...which suggests you are less likely to turn to alcohol or other addictive substances.
Also, if your only goal in life is 'be a vet' then you have accomplished your life with the DVM...and you probably neglected a lot of other things that make us healthy, unique individuals like building relationships, working within communities, etc. Maybe your goal is to increase the health and wealth of a community by changing production of poultry in that area. Maybe it is to have a home, or maybe it is to never settle in one place. Perhaps your goal is to travel. All of those will affect how/what/where/when you practice vet med, because the field is diverse, there are places for vets to integrate all of that into practice. Either way, people who know what they want out of life beyond their career are able to take the ups and downs of the career in perspective, whether that career is business, vet med, etc.
As for fixing the shortages, I think someone who is interested in food animal and truely displays that in their vet experience, educational experience, and activities will have an edge. The challenge for a lot of vet schools is that individauls 'say' they are interested, but then have more experience in SA, or lack actual experience in LA. Then it sounds contrived. As for overall shortages, the infracstructure isn't there. How do you add more students to a class when you can't currently sit all the students in the current lecture halls? When all your lecture halls are filled? When your anatomy lab is at such capacity that you can't even fit another stool in? Some campuses are truely at capacity, so responding to need isn't a real option without increaseing infrastructure, which takes funds, which are in short supply during a recession. Many schools have increased their capacities by over 30% in the past 10-15 years. In many cases that means more students with the same square footage, same equipment, same number of instructors. It adds stress to the entire system (equipment will break down faster, crowded conditions mean more accidents, etc.)
