S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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an enormous amount. The researcher had catalogues of anecdotes from the field and was comfortable working in its environment, being familiar with the issues, barriers and difficulties of delivering remote healthcare. He had a thorough understanding of the issues that confronted the general remote nurses he had taught about mental healthcare. The study, then, would be a mere re-telling and confirmation of the researcher’s experiences. In the course of undertaking the study, these preconceived thoughts were soon challenged, interrogated and re-shaped. What the process uncovered for the researcher were new and enlightening ways to understand and examine the phenomena of the enquiry. The researcher has studied logic and jurisprudence at university, and in other careers had appeared as Lead Counsel in the Supreme Courts and Junior Counsel in the High Court of Australia, all of which entailed preparing cases for trial or appeal. This work involved marshalling evidence and then analytically examining, testing and weighing it. In a previous life, he had also worked as a forensic accountant for an overseas merchant bank. This role also required the examination and analysis of financial evidence and records. All of this experience meant that at the commencement of the study, the researcher was assured of his abilities to analytically examine the phenomenon of remote general nurses delivering mental healthcare. The research process quickly reminded this novice researcher that in life there exist ‘unknown unknowns’, and that these were present on this occasion. Before commencing the literature review, the researcher first needed to learn how to conduct one. This educational process was to be repeated many times for the tasks of designing the methodology, methods, data collection, data analysis, case study method, thematic analysis, situational analysis, social world/arena analysis, actor-network theory and